Recorded Talk. The Nineteenth Century: High Victorian Design

This is a replay of the fourth series of our online course, which looks thematically at gardens of the 19th century. Originally run in early 2025, it was praised by attendees first time round for ‘the consistently high quality of the speakers - the breadth and depth of their knowledge and their excellent presentation skills.’

A History of Gardens from the Gardens Trust is suitable for anyone curious about gardens and their stories – whether absolute beginners or those with some garden history knowledge. It aims to help participants recognise important eras, themes and styles in mainly British garden history from the earliest times to today, grasp something of the social, economic, political and international contexts in which gardens have been created and find greater pleasure in visiting historic gardens.

The recordings will be available to view until 20 January. You can buy a ticket for the whole recorded series, or for any of the individual sessions. All attendees will also receive the short reading list produced for the original run of the series.

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The 19th century was a time of massive industrial, technological and social change, and that is true in the microcosm of the garden as much as in society more generally. The vast wealth generated by industrialisation and empire led to extravagance and swagger in gardens in a gaudy variety of styles, alongside huge investment in obtaining and cultivating exotic plant species. In many cases, the fashionable features and gardening activities of large country estates were miniaturised and transposed to suit the burgeoning middle-classes - and popularised through flourishing horticultural magazines edited by the likes of JC Loudon.

We’ll be exploring the period thematically, with five talks highlighting some of the key innovations, styles, people and networks that together came to define 19th-century gardens.

This ticket is for this individual talk and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the series of 5 available talks in our History of Gardens 3 Course at £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Tickets will be released on 5th Dec, and the recordings will be available to view until 20th January 2026. The Zoom links will be in the confirmation email sent directly after booking, if you do not receive that email, please contact us.

Ticket sales will close on 20th January at 10am.

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Recording 1: Garden Technology with David Marsh. First in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Recording 2: Head Gardeners - the Forgotten Heroes of 19th-Century Horticulture with Toby Musgrave. Second in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Recording 3: The Rise of the Gardening Press with Francesca Murray. Third in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Recording 4: High Victorian Design with Ben Dark. Fourth in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Recording 5: The Quest for Novelty: Colonialism, Trade and Plant Collecting in the 19th Century with Keith Alcorn. Last in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

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Recording 4: High Victorian Design with Ben Dark

‘What has the painter to do with the gay parterre, the delightful flower garden, the soul's delight of the majority of mankind?’ — Joshua Major

The High Victorian Period saw a rejection of the aesthetic rules that had shaped the English Landscape Garden. No more appeals to the picturesque. Goodbye to the line of beauty. In their place came a brilliant, gaudy, do-what-you-like swagger of colour and historic revivalism; occasionally successful, often searingly bad, but always interesting and now sadly overlooked.
This talk will bring back some eccentric masterpieces of the age and follow their development from origins in Loudon’s gardenesque, to an eventual death under the crushing boot of good-taste and the Natural Garden.

Ben Dark is a writer, historian and ex-head gardener. He is author of The Grove: A Nature Odessey in 19 ½ Front Gardens (Mitchell Beasley, 2022) and is currently writing a history of plants for the Bodley Head. His articles appear widely and in 2022 he won the Garden Media Guild’s Journalist of the Year award.

Image: An arrangement of beds in a geometrical garden of moderate size, from Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, On Colour, and on the Necessity for a General Diffusion of Taste Among all Classes, detail (1858), Plate VIII, public domain

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We’re grateful to Wooden Books, sponsor of the first five series of A History of Gardens.

Wooden Books, the world’s leading Liberal Arts and Sciences pocket series.

From Mazes & Labyrinths to Mathematical Functions, from Mythological Animals to the Miracle of Trees. From Portals, to Proportion, to Poisonous Plants and Poetic Metre & Form. Wooden Books are beautifully illustrated on every page. Learn about Li. Slip into Shadows. Get a grip on the Golden Section. Small books, big ideas.

"Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES.

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