Revival and relevance: The walled kitchen garden in 21st century public history

Trelissick walled kitchen garden currently lies dormant at the heart of a thriving National Trust property on the outskirts of Truro in Cornwall. Created in the 18th century, this highly productive space fed and adorned the estate throughout its ever-evolving lifespan and numerous proprietors. The mid-20th century saw its decline and enforced state of redundancy, mirroring the fate met by many similar sites across the nation. The site now stands on the brink of regeneration. This thesis locates the public historic walled garden within the wider historiography and seeks to present a framework in which the National Trust can present the walled kitchen garden to a 21st century audience, one that respects its historic origins yet responds to the needs and wants of its visitors, all the while retaining relevance. Despite the development of wider historical discourse surrounding concepts of public history, history from below and new museology, the discipline of garden history has mostly fixated its gaze upon conventional elitist narratives which gravitate towards the 18th century British landscape movement. This thesis explores the limitations of such an approach, as well as the means by which garden history can reassess its dependence upon hegemonic discourse, thereby becoming more responsive and future oriented, embracing notions of co-curatorship and dialogue that are at the heart of alternative methodological perspectives such as new museology, public history and history from below. Thus, Trelissick’s walled garden has the potential to embody the manifestation of garden history – often regarded as a purely scholarly discipline – in historic gardens themselves

Garden Soils: Reviewing the Viability of Soil Phosphate Analyses in the Archaeological Identification of Ancient Maya Kitchen Gardens

The study of ancient Maya intensive, intra-site agricultural systems, such as kitchen gardens, has gained new interest in recent years as a valuable way of interpreting numerous aspects of the ancient Maya\u27s daily life (e.g. subsistence and settlement patterns, population growth, diet and nutrition, gender roles). However, while contemporary Maya kitchen gardens can often be easily identified and studied by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists, ancient kitchen gardens are usually much harder to identify by traditional archaeological techniques because of their lack of architectural structures and other identifying features. To compensate for this limitation, various forms of chemical testing (primarily phosphate analysis) are being used to positively identify kitchen gardens and other specific anthropogenically modified spaces that are invisible to standard archaeological techniques. The archaeological community trusts these methods to be a reliable way of testing soils in archaeological sites for specific agricultural features, even though there has been little research conducted to conclusively prove this assertion. In response to this lack of research, this thesis investigates the viability of phosphate analysis and other chemical tests through a comprehensive literary review of previous and current research and an analysis of the data presented within it. While soil phosphate analysis has been used in past and current research to identify general agricultural features with great success, the chemical signatures produced from this method only give vague information about the soil and what was done to it, making soil Phosphate analysis unreliable to definitively discern specific agricultural areas, such as kitchen gardens, from general agricultural areas

The Value of Ecological Plantings in Public Gardens

This paper has been developed from a third year dissertation written as part of the Diploma in Horticulture course at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It serves as an overview of the subject of ecological planting and its potential applications within public gardens. It also outlines some scientific benefits regarding ecological studies, the impact that this type of planting may have on horticulture (both in gardens and the nursery trade), and the educational benefits for the public and school groups. The case study below looks at the viability of representing a section of Snow Gum Grassy Woodland (a vegetation type found in New South Wales, Australia) outside in Coates Wood, Wakehurst Place, UK

The diversity of flower-visiting insects in the gardens of English country houses

Flower-visiting insects provide essential pollination services, ensuring both global food security and the continuity of wild plants. Recently documented declines in pollinators give cause for concern. Identifying previously unappreciated habitats that support diverse assemblages of these insects is an essential first step in mitigating further losses. This study evaluates, for the first time, the role that large English country-house gardens play in supporting flower visitors within expanses of intensively farmed agricultural land. Focussing on 17 properties in lowland Central England, the results show that these novel ecosystems are important sites for hoverflies, bees and butterflies. In 2010 almost 10,000 flower-visitors from 174 species were recorded Hoverflies were the only group to show a significant difference in species richness across the sites. An important characteristic of these rural gardens is the high diversity of flowering plants available. More than a fifth of the world's plant families were represented, of which approximately 68% were non-native. The results showed that flower visitors did not prefer native plants over aliens, and that the dominance by aliens was no barrier for extensive use by the insects present. Both the species richness and abundance of flower visitors increased as plant richness increased. The study revealed that half of all insect-plant interaction networks examined exhibited a nested structure, a common feature of natural environments that has not previously been assessed in rural gardens. In addition to flower resources influencing insect species richness, landscape-scale effects were also significant. Insect groups responded differently to components in the landscape according to the time of year and the spatial scale considered. Bumblebees exhibited the greatest response to landscape factors and did so at larger scales than other groups. The deployment of commercial trap-nests for solitary cavity-nesting red mason bees in walled gardens revealed new insights into the differential mortality suffered by male and female progeny. Female offspring were found to be disproportionately affected by a combination of development and parasitism losses. This finding suggests that effective mitigation strategies are needed before this species can be considered for use as a managed-pollinator. Further research assessing the benefits crops such as oilseed rape derive from the presence of insects in nearby rural gardens would be a useful addition to this work. Overall, the gardens of English country-houses emerge as sites of important natural as well as cultural heritage

A space of One’s own: Houselot size among the ancient Maya

This paper uses new data from lidar mapping to explore variation in the size of ancient Maya houselots. The amount of space available to households has important implications for subsistence, craft activities, social relations, and more. Comparisons of houselot data from three large cities (Coba, Mayapan, and Chunchucmil) and one rural area (southwestern Quintana Roo) show significant differences in houselot size across the four case studies. Site size has no effect when comparing across case studies although patterns of variation do emerge within the case studies. Of the major factors explored–wealth, household size, distance from site core, availability of open space, and agricultural strategies–houselot space correlates most strongly (but not unequivocally) with proxies for wealth. Craft activities have little bearing on houselot size. Agricultural strategies likely factor in to houselot size at Chunchucmil and in southwestern Quintana Roo but only in the latter case do houselots play a role in smallholding. Multiple regressions show that much of the variability in houselot size remains unexplained. This indicates that unquantifiable factors such as local customs and idiosyncratic historical events play a large role in shaping the amount of room ancient Maya people had for living space, rather than administrative or supra-domestic bureaucratic structures

Contemporaneity of Spain rural architecture intervention and economic sustainability

From the second half of the 20th century onwards, Spanish rural architecture has suffered a transformation regarding its farming and ranching model. The economic unsustainability of the family economy has led to further action for the viability of the system. This transformation has meant a new mindset to the owner of the farm and livestock, who had to consider whether continuity was given to the exploitation or the countryside/field was changed and adapted to a new use such as rural tourism, restoration, or for collective uses such as holiday camps, cultural centers or others. Owners who have decided to continue the exploitation they were developing have had to industrialize it and thus extend it in a considerable percentage. That has meant the need to intervene significantly in the rural architectural heritage. A wide and varied range of results has been obtained in these interventions: from the fossilization or destruction of assets, to the achievement of harmony and coexistence between tradition and modernity in this heritage, the result of which represents the contemporaneity of rural architecture.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

St. Leonard's Forest: social and economic change from 1750 to 1914 and its impact on a forest landscape

This thesis is concerned with the changes to a forest landscape, that of St. Leonard’s Forest, Horsham, West Sussex, changes that were wrought by human activity over two and half centuries. In order to uncover and understand these changes the author has focused on five private estates within the Forest core, Holmbush, Buchan Hill, St. Leonard’s, Coolhurst and Leonardslee, and two villages in the Forest, Colgate and Lower Beeding. The five estates are considered with regard to ownership and control, land use and workers on the estates. The two villages are examined for their growth, the profile of the population, poverty and wealth. The establishment and endowments of the parish churches are outlined along with the development of the parish of Lower Beeding and its ties to Magdalen College, Oxford. Paternalism was a theme in the Victorian and Edwardian period, and the 1900 Footpath Dispute demonstrated a move away from these attitudes towards a more individualistic concern with private property rights. For the first time this study pulls together the numerous and complex strands which make up the landscape history of St. Leonard’s Forest. It explores the factors both social and economic which impacted on the Forest. The juxtaposition of the nearby expanding market town of Horsham with its large common, improving communications, sales of land, and the attitudes of individual Forest landowners all combined to transform the Forest from a wild barren heathland in 1750 to a place of desirable picturesque estates and expanding villages by 1914, before the impact of the Great War was to change the Forest landscape yet again

Piko, Lifeline of the Community: Principles of Adaptive Reuse at Iwilei Dole Cannery

Dying malls are a growing concern in our urban landscape and decreasing property values in the surrounding neighborhood in extreme cases leading to total building abandonment. Often found in lower to mid-income communities, these dying sites are becoming increasingly common. It is unknown whether the community is a reflection of the landscape, or the landscape is a reflection of its people. Whatever the direction, little to no outreach opportunities exist for the community and its people. The original function of a building, whether through economy and/or industry change, is no longer applicable. The goal of this study is to show that adaptive reuse of these spaces coupled with the right social programs, can be the catalyst for change in human behavior. Community uplift is a core goal at the proposed site, The Shops at Dole Cannery. The uplift will be achieved through an intensive inward focus on the community of Iwilei and an extensive outward focus on the Department of Education’s Farrington district (Kalihi). Smart solutions that incorporate education, a self-sustainable hands on design, and income generating programs will address the challenges of those in the low/mid income socio-economic strata. Public-Private entities are mutually beneficial and work conjointly. Public spaces provide the venues that host private entities, and in return, the public entity gains access to a steady stream of financial resources. Adaptive reuse sites will bring together the concepts of community uplift, urban renewal, and environmental sustainability. To further support the idea of social ecology, a re-examination of local building codes is in proposed. The foundation of this study rests upon the understanding that a balanced network transportation system will increase mobility compatible with current urban living conditions. Innovative program/project design is critical. Promotion of a public transportation system with feeder stops will both increase and encourage high occupancy to once dead sites

The American Garden at Powderham: Delightful Retreat in the Plantation

This thesis explores the history of the American Garden at Powderham in Devon, England. The seven-acre space was created, abandoned, and replanted over the course of over two-hundred years yet manages to convey remarkable integrity and sense of place. In the process of discovering who created the garden, this study aims to bring a deeper understanding of how and why American gardens, and Powderham’s in particular, were constructed in the late Georgian period. Because the Powderham American Garden has changed significantly over the past 200 years, the garden is not as it appeared in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Developing a site analysis based on historic maps, household invoices and inventories, correspondence, diaries and accounts of family members and visitors, artwork, books at Powderham, and treatises of contemporary horticulturists generates context for understanding the garden’s likely historic appearance and use. Other British eighteenth-century American gardens offer comparables for Powderham’s garden. This evolving contextualized understanding elucidates the garden’s meaning and leads to ideas about its interpretation and presentation to a visiting public today. The Georgian garden was designed for movement – meant to be experienced in motion and sequence. As the narration progresses through the garden, this paper will explore the structures, plants, views, spatial organization, and circulation in order to address the central question of this thesis: Who and what forces created the American Garden, and how does the garden convey a broader understanding of and relationship to culture and society in the late Georgian era