Currently viewing the category: "Chiswick Gardeners"

Reputations

by Val Bott on 09/04/2014 · 0 Comments

A reputation for  reliability and quality was the key to success in business for 17th and 18th century nursery gardeners. This could be influenced by many factors, from a gardener’s training, through early employment, to the respect of patrons and colleagues. Personal testimonials passed on by satisfied customers were invaluable, while the emerging genre of […]

The Murfin family

by Val Bott on 08/01/2013 · 0 Comments

By chance I found the headstone on William Murfin’s grave at St Nicholas, Chiswick. I had already discovered his will, but it threw up a question to which the inscription on this headstone provides the answer. William Murfin (1741-1813) was head gardener at Chiswick House by 1790 and worked for Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, on […]

Brentford & Chiswick Nursery Gardeners

by Val Bott on 06/11/2012 · 0 Comments

Lecture for the London Parks and Gardens Trust, 7-8pm, 12 November 2012 at The Garden Museum SE1 7LB (map) Val Bott will be giving a lecture about some of the nursery gardeners of the Brentford & Chiswick area between 1680 and 1820. Her research has used local history and family history to discover the links […]

A confusion of Lewis Kennedys

by Val Bott on 27/12/2011 · 0 Comments

For the historian, the practice of naming sons after fathers and/or grandfathers can cause no end of confusion. This has certainly been the case with a family of Scots gardeners called Kennedy.What follows is an attempt to clarify which gardeners called Lewis Kennedy had links with the Chiswick area. A Lewis Kennedy prepared Notitiae, elegant […]