Why So special? Iconic C20 Landscapes - Broadwater Park

FOLAR and The Gardens Trust are delighted to present a series of weekly online talks reviewing the 21 recently registered Historic England post war landscapes and gardens and their designers.

[To see details of this particular talk please scroll down beyond the listings]

The purpose of the series is to focus attention on the ideas, ingenuity and quality of each of these C20 designs. With a brilliant array of speakers including the original designers, academics, historians and researchers plus further insights from head gardeners, residents, site managers and users, we aim to reveal more detail about the design, the designer, how the landscape/garden works, how it has endured over the years, and what its future is like even with Historic England (HE) listing. We also want to discuss availability and access to drawings and papers related to the projects.

These landscapes and gardens range from private gardens to vast reclamation projects. Throughout the UK many C20 designed gardens and landscapes are at great risk from being unnoticed or under-valued, or they are maintained without any awareness of the original concept, such that sites get swept away, ‘improved’ or built over. We hope that this series of talks will help to change this.

The series runs from 7 September 2021 to 29 March 2022, grouped by subject and with a week’s break between topics. [and nothing in December] All talks are on Tuesdays from 18.00-19.15.

This ticket is for this individual talk and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual talks via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire series of 21 talks at a cost of £84 via the link here.

FOLAR members can buy tickets for either the entire series or for individual talks at the reduced price of £60 and £3.50. Please note that Landscape Institute members are not automatically members of FOLAR.

For a detailed description of each talk please click on the individual ticket for more information (which will be updated with information when available). FOLAR members can access their ticket prices at checkout.

To join FOLAR (Individual membership subscription - £20 per annum) go to www.folar.uk/support-us.

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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New Town Parks

Week 1: 7 September. Harlow Town Park with David Allen and Alison Fox. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84

Week 2: 14 September. Campbell Park Milton Keynes with Neil Higson and Brian Salter. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Commercial Landscapes

Week 3: 28 September. Stockley Park with Bernard Ede and Claire Watson. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 4: 5 October. Broadwater Park with Karen Fitzsimon. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 5: 12 October. Cummins Engine Factory with Jane Amidon and Matthew Benians. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 6: 19 October. Cadbury Factory with Ed Bennis and Rob Belcher. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Public Housing

Week 7: 2 November. Alexandra Road Park with Neil Davidson. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 8: 9 November. Brunel Estate with Colin Moore. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 9: 16 November. Golden Lane Estate with Elain Harwood and Clem Cecil. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 10: 23 November. Churchill Gardens with Dominic Cole. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 11: 30 November. Alton East and West with Elain Harwood. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Semi-Public Gardens

Week 12: 11 January. Improvement Garden Stockwood Park with Kate Harwood. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 13: 18 January. Roper’s Garden with Ed Bennis. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 14: 25 January. Kennedy Memorial with Annabel Downs. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 15: 1 February. St Catherine’s College with Tim Richardson. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Private Housing

Week 16: 15 February. Fieldend with Jan Woudstra. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 17: 22 February. Burwood Place Water Gardens with Dominic Cole, Jan Woudstra and Cristina Refolo. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Private Gardens

Week 18: 8 March. Beth Chatto’s Garden with David Ward. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 19: 15 March. Denmans Garden with Barbara Simms and Gwendolyn van Paasschen. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 20: 22 March. York Gate Garden tbc. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 21: 29 March. Shute House with Kate Felus. Part of a series of 21 online lectures, £5 each, or all 21 for £84.

Week 4. 5 Oct: Broadwater Park

The landscape setting, designed by Preben Jakobsen in the early 1980s, was for offices and a distribution warehouse for the National Water Council. Involved from the outset, Jakobsen was able to influence managing the contaminated land. The design includes an earthwork terrace framed by a circular hedge, a secret garden for the staff and car parking. Jakobsen developed a niche role designing high quality and distinctive landscapes for commercial companies, and a number of these projects were with Bill Pack of EPR. Karen Fitzsimon will explain this project, his considered selection and style of planting and how this project fits into Jakobsen’s oeuvre.

Karen Fitzsimon is a landscape architect, garden historian and horticulturalist. She co-curated the 2017 Gardens Trust symposium on post war designed landscapes, ‘Overlooked, Undervalued and At Risk?’ resulting in the 20+ sites added to the HE register. She is currently undertaking doctoral research at University of Westminster on the landscape practice of Preben Jakobsen.

Image: © Broadwater Park, Historic England.