Unforgettable Gardens - Highdown Gardens
Date and time
Location
Online event
Refund policy
This talk is the second in our series on Weds @ 6 from 2 Feb presented in association with Sussex Gardens Trust £5 each or all 4 for £16
About this event
This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here.
[Due to a recent Apple decision to charge a 30% fee for paid online events unfortunately you may no longer be able to purchase this ticket from the Eventbrite iOS app. Please use a web browser on desktop or mobile to purchase, or follow the link here.]
Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
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This series on 4 Unforgettable Sussex Gardens follows a theme that is ‘Informed by their histories’. This reflects how the three individual gardens, and one group are all benefiting from new and on-going research into their design and plant collection archives, whether these are letters, catalogues and drawings etc., or, most excitingly, the surviving plants themselves
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Week 1. 2nd February. Denmans Garden: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.
Week 2. 9th February. Highdown Gardens: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.
Week 3. 16th February. Borde Hill: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.
Week 4. 23 February. A selection of Sussex gardens designed by Gertrude Jekyll: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.
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Week 2. 9 February. Society and Snowdrops: Highdown Gardens past and present with Alex New & Hamish MacGillivray
Highdown Gardens forms part of Highdown Hill in the South Downs National Park, near Worthing. It is a unique chalk garden created, from 1909, by Sir Frederick and Lady Sybil Stern. They were obsessed with growing chalk loving plants from around the world. The eight acres are divided into ‘rooms’ where rock gardens, ponds, pergolas, herbaceous, mixed and shrub borders, woodland and a rose garden thrive.
The Sterns’ pioneering horticultural and philanthropic work attracted plant hunters, gardeners, politicians, scientists, the royal family and a bunch of east end kids. Since 1968 Worthing Council staff have carefully managed the gardens and in 1989 it was recognised as a National Plant Collection.
From 2019 a National Lottery Heritage Fund project improved the site with a new greenhouse, sensory garden and visitor centre. Highdown Gardens is now a living library with a propagation project to share the Stern’s plants for future generations
Alex New first forayed into the world of plants properly in 2009 following a career change. Following a three-year horticultural course and a degree in botany, he spent seven years at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, home to the largest collection of hardy trees and shrubs in the northern hemisphere, as student, gardener and area manager. Now Plant Heritage Officer at Highdown Gardens, a role too exciting to resist. He finds it wonderful to have such an important job at such a storied garden.
Hamish MacGillivray has worked in the museum and heritage sector for over 30 years as a curator, exhibitions project manager and oral historian. He researched the stories for the Chartwell audio garden guide for the National Trust. From 2019 to 2021 he was the researcher/writer for the new Highdown Gardens visitor centre and website. At present, he is the national coordinator for the Museums and Galleries Network for Exhibition Touring, based at the Horniman Museum and Gardens. He is not a gardener but over 10 years has learnt how to trim ivy hedges by hand.
www.acmemuseumservices.co.uk/about/
Image: Royal visitors at Highdown 1936 © West Sussex Record Office
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