Date and Time
The inaugural Annual General Meeting and Lecture of the Avon and Gloucestershire Gardens Trust will be held in the Parkinson Lecture Theatre, Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, GL7 6JS. The AGM will commence at 2pm.
Find out how to find the RAU on their website. We meet in Building 18 – Parkinson Lecture Theatre.
The AGM will be followed by a lecture – ‘A prettyish kind of a little wilderness’ – Landscapes and gardens in the novels of Jane Austen with Professor Timothy Mowl.
Timothy Mowl’s lavishly illustrated talk will consider designed landscapes and gardens in Jane Austen’s novels, not only as representative of current horticultural fads, but as important elements in the plots, providing the background to moments of high emotional drama. Her life spans the demise of Capability Brown’s minimalist landscaping (died 1783), the growth of Picturesque theory in the late 1780s and 1790s, which she satirises in Northanger Abbey, and the coming of Humphry Repton, who appears in Mansfield Park, with his promotion of Ornamental Gardening. At the heart of the novels and of this talk are the shrubberies, sweet-scented, shadowy places for exercise, contemplation and romantic assignations.
The lecture is Free for members (but booking essential). £10 for Guests.
