This talk is the last in our series which will explore the personal visions of four creators of some of our Unforgettable Gardens: Sir Frank Crisp at Friar Park, Ian Hamilton Finlay at Little Sparta, Charles Hamilton at Painshill Park and William Aislabie at Studley Royal.

This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links above, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

Week 4. 24th Feb: William Aislabie at Studley Royal (continued) with Mark Newman

It used to be suggested that William Aislabie’s only contribution to the designed landscapes of Studley Royal was fulfilling his father’s aspiration to acquire Fountains Abbey. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Although he learned from and (unfashionably) carefully preserved much of his father John’s achievements, William demonstrated a second unique generation of Aislabie genius in landscape design. Over the course of forty years he would extend the designed landscape to many times the size of that he inherited, taking in several additional not-so-neighbouring locations and the landscapes between. He would develop further the innovative themes his father had explored and introduce many new ones besides, creating between them an extraordinary palimpsest of Georgian gardening tastes. William’s Studley Royal was a truly landscape of journey, intellectually, aesthetically and physically.

This talk is a freestanding companion piece to “Genius of the Place: John Aislabie and his personal styles at Studley Royal” , a lecture presented by the Gardens Trust and Yorkshire Gardens Trust to mark the elder Aislabie’s 350th Birthday on December 4th 2020. It takes the tale of Studley Royal to the apogee of its glory.

.....

Mark Newman is the National Trust's Archaeologist for Yorkshire and the North-East. He started out as a volunteer schoolboy on rescue excavations in Kent before obtaining his BA in Ancient History & Archaeology and MA in Archaeological Method and Practice from the University of Birmingham. He then worked as a field archaeologist in England, Australia, the U.S, Italy, Cyprus and Guyana before joining the NT in 1988 as the archaeologist on the project to build the Visitor Centre at Fountains Abbey/Studley Royal. He has remained the archaeologist / landscape historian for the property ever since. His work at Studley Royal has given him a particular passion for designed landscapes and for conservation management. Mark currently advises the NT on properties over a region stretching from Berwick-on Tweed to the Pennine boundaries of Greater Manchester.