Oral History Project

The Lindley Library has compiled extracts from interview recordings of staff past and present.

Click the links below to listen to audio interviews with previous employees at RHS Garden Wisley.

Wisley Voices

Working for the RHS Garden Wisley	[mins'seconds"]
Coming to work for the RHS	[4'29"]
Roles within the RHS	[4'59"]
Joining the RHS and pay	[3'34"]
The running of Wisley
Science and Advisory department	[8'50"]
Education, students, hostels	[6'49"]
Audio and stills of RHS Garden Wisley
Storms 1987/1990	[3'03"]
Colin Martin - Gardener at Wisley during the 1965 Tornado	[1'55"]
Stories from Wisley
Stories from previous garden staff	[11'43"]
War Time	[3'07"]
Wisley characters	[7'39"]
Garden characters	[5'43"]
Student pranks	[9'13"]
Miscellaneous
Visitors to Wisley	[1'50"]
Deer's farm	[1'19"]
Gardener's Calendar and Granada TV	[1'50"]
Social events	[3'29"]
What Wisley means to me	[1'34"]

To play these audio and video clips you will need Windows Media Player. Download the latest version here:
Get Windows Media Player

The Oral History Project was set up by Barbara Collecott (Head of Library Reader Services, based at Wisley) in 2000 to record the memories and feelings of those who had specialist knowledge of a particular aspect of the development of the RHS gardens and services, these include retired staff, long serving staff, volunteers and RHS students/trainees.

David and Margaret Batt are two experienced Wisley Library Volunteers working to Barbara Collecott on this and other archive projects. They contact potential interviewees, and record the interviews. Interviews usually take an hour or so.They hope to do more interviews at other RHS gardens.

All material will be preserved as a reference resource for use in research, publication, education, lectures and broadcasting.

Access is strictly controlled by Barbara Collecott and her Library staff.

Contributions will only be made available to bona fide researchers.