Key facts

Type	Online and Distance Learning
Location	Online
Dates	Wed 25 Sep to Fri 6 Dec 2013
Subject area(s)	Local History
CATS points	10
Fees	From £220.00
Application status	Applications being accepted
Course code	O13P345LHV
Course contact	If you have any questions about this course, please email onlinecourses@conted.ox.ac.uk.

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Overview

This course is the ideal introduction to English garden history. It provides an overview of five centuries of development, from Baroque formalism through the naturalistic landscape style, right up to contemporary cutting-edge planting style. The course was written by Tim Richardson, an independent garden historian and landscape critic. Tim writes regularly for newspapers and magazines including The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and Country Life, and is the author of nine books on garden and landscape subjects. He is a trustee of the Garden History Society and a member of the gardens advisory panel of the National Trust.

Description

The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner called the landscape garden Britain's major contribution to the visual arts, and this course aims to explore why and how that came to be so. Beginning in the mid 17th century, when grand gardens were laid out in formal style, the course traces the development of garden style across five centuries. There is special emphasis on the early-18th-century landscape garden, as perhaps the high-point, when politics, art, science, philosophy and gardening intersected in an unprecedented way. Later in the century Capability Brown made the style his own, creating a landscape monopoly across Britain, before Humphry Repton brought back an element of formality in the Regency period. The 19th century witnessed the apogee of the head gardener and the creation of the first public parks, while new plant introductions from China and elsewhere provided new impetus to horticulture.

The 20th century was one of the richest periods in English garden history and will be fully explored here. Gertrude Jekyll pioneered the colour-themed herbaceous border and her partnership with architect Edwin Lutyens created what is often seen as the perfect stylistic union between house and garden. The story is brought right up to date with modules on 20th-century planting theory and contemporary art or sculpture gardens such as Little Sparta.

Programme details

Introduction
The Baroque background, 1650-1700

1 The Anglo-Dutch Gardens of the William and Mary period
Vanbrugh and Castle Howard
Charles Bridgeman, a 'transitional designer?

2. Queen Anne and Early Hanoverian Gardens, 1701-13
The rise of Palladianism
Lord Burlington and Chiswick House gardens

3. Whig and Tory landscape gardens, 1710-1730
Alexander Pope at Twickenham
New plants from foreign climes

4. William Kent and the Patriot Opposition, 1730s
Kent's gardens for Princess Caroline
Lord Cobham's political gardening at Stowe
The Jacobite garden

5. Capability Brown
Key works by Brown Brown's contemporaries: Woods, Emes and co

6. Humphry Repton and the Regency
The gardens at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton
Sheringham, Norfolk, as the apogee

7. Victorian gardening J.C.Loudon and the 'gardenesque'
Carpet bedding and the rise of the public park
The impact of new plant introductions

8. Gertrude Jekyll and Arts and Crafts
The partnership between Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens
William Robinson and the wild garden

9. Gardening in the 20th Century Mid-century development of the herbaceous tradition
Colour theory reaches its climax and is superseded by New Perennials in the late 1990s

10. Modern Gardens through the 20th century
The impact (or otherwise) of Modernism Key late-century gardens by Jarman, Jencks, Strong and Finlay

We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

Course aims

Course Aim:
To provide an overview and introduction to English garden history, with special emphasis on the 18th-century landscape garden and on the 20th century.

Course Objectives:
This course will enable participants to:
1. Understand the trajectory of English landscape history from formalism to increasing naturalism.
2. Trace the development of garden style across five centuries.
3. Gain an understanding of how textual and other sources can be complemented by on-the-ground study of gardens and landscape.

Certification

This course is accredited and you are expected to take the course for credit. To be awarded credit you must complete written contributions satisfactorily. Successful students will receive credit, awarded by the Board of Studies of Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. The award will take the form of 10 units of transferable credit at FHEQ level 4 of the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS). A transcript detailing the credit will be issued to successful students.

Assessment methods

Assessment for this course is based on two assignments, placed midway through the course and completed in the 10 weeks of the course (the second assignment due at the end of week 10). Students will have two weeks to complete each assignment. The first piece will be a short exercise designed to demonstrate their understanding of a concept or concepts. Feedback from this will be designed to give them an idea of the progress they have made and of those areas of their work that might need more attention. The later piece of work allows students to demonstrate their learning on the course as a whole.

Recommended reading

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following texts:

• Richardson, T., The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden, (Bantam Press, 2007)


• Uglow, Jenny, A Little History of British Gardening (Pimlico, 2005)

Students will also be encouraged to use a large number of websites dedicated to individual gardens which are open to the public today.

Teaching methods

Guided reading of documents and of visual sources such as garden plans
Research topics with student feedback
Discussion sessions
Set questions on primary materials
Questions to be answered in personal folders
Quizzes

Teaching outcomes

By the end of this course students will be expected to have gained the following skills:
1. The ability to examine texts and visual sources with some discrimination as to their reliability.
2. An understanding of the importance of the wider cultural and political context of garden-making.
3. An appreciation that gardens are not just about plants or vice versa.
4. An appreciation of the importance of using both archival materials and books, as well as on-the-ground visits to gardens.

Fee options

Programme Fee

Home/EU Fee: £220.00

Non-EUFee: £295.00

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