Saturday 28th February 2015
Venue: Chawton House
2.00pm to 5.00pm
A day of talks organised by the University of Southampton Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, focusing on the experience of inhabiting gardens.
Georgian men and women frequently wrote of the pleasures of being in a garden, but those pleasures were often defined by gender and associated with particular locations (the flower garden or the park, the walled garden or the shrubbery). From the theories of Thomas Whately and Humphry Repton, to the novels of Jane Austen and the private letters of the Bluestockings, this day of talks will explore what people were told to do in gardens, and what they sometimes did instead. Speakers include Stephen Bending (University of Southampton), author of Green Retreats: women, gardens and eighteenth-century culture, Robert Clark (University of East Anglia), a specialist on Jane Austen and landscape, Kristof Fatsar (Corvinus University of Budapest) a specialist in European garden history, Kate Baker (Portsmouth School of Architecture) author of Captured Landscape, the Paradox of the Enclosed Garden and Michael Symes, author of Mr Hamilton’s Elysium: The gardens of Painshill and editor of the forthcoming edition of Thomas Whately’s Observations on Modern Gardening.
Tickets: £20; Students/Unwaged £15 (includes refreshments)
Book Tickets here or call Chawton House Library on 01420 541010