The Greenings, royal gardeners, 12 February 2018

Val will be presenting the history of the Greening family of Brentford End at a joint meeting of the Richmond Local History Society and the Kew Society. Two of the estates which today make up Kew Gardens were at one period managed by two brothers of the second generation of this family business, though they were locked in a legal battle over ownership of the family garden grounds around 1750! Another brother rose to run not only the two estates at Kew but also the gardens of Hampton Court and St James’ Park and Kensington Gardens. Val’s talk will reveal something of their expertise and creativity, discuss some of the aristocratic estates with which they were involved and consider the role of the ambitious Capability Brown in obliterating a good deal of their work.

8pm, at the Duke Street Church in Richmond, Surrey.
Admission is free to members of the two sponsoring societies. Non-members are welcome and will be invited to pay £4 on the door. There is no advance booking as the venue has plenty of seating.

Discovering West London Nursery Gardeners, 16 November 2017

Val Bott’s talk at Kellogg College in Oxford will look at half a dozen gardening families in Brentford and Chiswick. They improved, grafted and propagated new stock, including the Williams pear. Some wrote books, issued prints and promoted their businesses profitably while a few failed miserably. They supplied plants, bulbs and seeds to estates over a wide area of England in the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Some travelled many miles each year, visiting and advising clients and their gardeners, while others became contractors, designing and overseeing significant horticultural projects. There are some Oxfordshire connections: Thomas Greening (1684-1757), born at Great Haseley in Oxfordshire, had establsihed his nursery near the market town of Brentford by 1710, from where he obtained a series of significant aristocratic and royal contracts. His son, Robert, produced stunning designs for Kirtlington, with a naturalistic style that predated Capability Brown.

Full details on the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust website

The Greenings, Royal Gardeners, 19 September 2016

I shall be giving a talk to the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society on the evening of Monday, 19 September. This takes place at The Chiswick Memorial Club, Bourne Place, London W4, just off Dukes Avenue, at 7.30pm, and the Society welcome non-members at their talks, admission free.

The talk will tell the story of the Greening family, established in Brentford End by 1710 and, 4 generations on, still working in horticulture in the 1790s. Skillful nurserymen, they were also contractors, garden designers and agents, serving the aristocracy and especially the royal family.

Pleasure Gardens & Pineapple Stoves, 28 January 2016

Lady Burlington gardening with her servant, James Cambridge (Chatsworth Settlement trustees)
Lady Burlington gardening with her servant, James Cambridge (Chatsworth Settlement trustees)

I shall be giving a talk on the gardeners of Chiswick House at St Nicholas Church, Chiswick on 28 January. The event is hosted by the Friends of St Nicholas and the Friends of Chiswick House. It will provide a glimpse of the gardeners who are usually ignored – not the well-known characters like Kent, but the chaps (and they were mainly chaps, apart from the weeder women) whose expertise and labour made the gardens work successfully.

Doors open at 6.30pm, when refreshments will be available, and the talk will start at 7pm. Admission is free to members of the two Friends’ groups, otherwise, £10 per person or £7 for concessions, to cover costs and support their work. All are welcome!