Patron
Lucy Abel Smith FSA
Lucy Abel Smith FSA is an art historian and has spent any spare time researching the patronage of the 17th-century Duke and Duchess of Beaufort. The Duchess as a plant collector was the subject of a talk to the Trust.
She established her own travel business Reality and Beyond Ltd twenty years ago, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She is co- founder of the Quenington Sculpture Trust and founder and organiser of the Transylvanian Book Festival held in the village in Transylvania where she has restored a village farm house. The Abel Smiths open the garden for the RHS and the Rare Plants Fair to raise funds for Cobalt.
She is also a patron of our Trust.
GGLT Chair
Margie Hoffnung
Margie Hoffnung, the Chair of GGLT, completed a 4 year Horticulture Degree at Writtle College, after working at Westonbirt Arboretum. Her sandwich placement was with Rosemary Verey, the well-known plantswoman, author and garden designer, with whom she continued to work for over a decade until Rosemary’s death.
She also spent some years at Highgrove as both gardener and garden guide for HRH The Prince of Wales, as well as manning Jekka McVicar’s herb stand at flower shows like Chelsea and Hampton Court for several seasons. She subsequently completed a Masters degree in the Conservation of Historic Gardens & Cultural Landscapes at Bath and since 2013 has worked for the Garden History Society (now the Gardens Trust) and is their Conservation Officer.
In this role she liaises closely with County Gardens Trusts all round England and responds to planning applications which might affect listed historic designed landscapes, to make sure as far as possible, that these proposals do not have an adverse effect on those sites or their settings.
She is a regular speaker to gardening societies on a variety of topics as well speaking on conservation issues relating to historic gardens to heritage bodies.
Treasurer
Ali Jewell
Ali Jewell, Treasurer appointed in November 2023, is a new member of the GGLT with a background in finance and teaching.
She has lived in Gloucestershire for 30 years and is a keen gardener. She also has an interest in research and local history and would like to make sure that the finances of the Trust allow it to develop this essential element of its remit.
As the funds of the Trust depend on membership, lectures and garden visits it is important that we maintain the high quality of our talks and garden visits together with encouraging new membership, so that we can continue to carry out the work vital to preserving our unique Gloucestershire landscape.
Garden Visits Co-ordinator
Marion Mako
Marion trained as a garden designer and garden historian. She has been leading garden tours for over sixteen years in England and Europe, sharing her passion for plants, the stories behind the gardens and especially the Arts and Crafts era. Marion has presented for television and lectures at The London College of Garden Design as well as garden groups in England and America.
She researched and co-authored part of The Historic Gardens of England series, has written three other garden histories and contributed to Gardens Illustrated, Country Life and Hortus Journal. She has been an active member of GGLT since 2005.
We are a small group of member volunteers, who bring together a wealth of landscape- related experience to shape and inform our visits calendar. These skills range from Kew-trained gardeners, horticulturalists, historians and planners to enthusiastic gardeners, all with a passion for preserving and sharing Gloucestershire’s gardens and landscapes.
Our visits range from large and small private gardens to wider landscapes and historic parks. They are led by volunteers, owners and experts who will share the stories and ideas behind these spaces. Most of our visits are based around the county of Gloucestershire, but we sometimes take advantage of others in adjacent counties.
Garden visiting is thirsty work and so we often have tea and cake, or even a glass of wine included in the visit!
Come and join us, often for a peek behind garden walls you would never normally get to see.
Talks/Lecture Secretary
Elise Forbes
I have been a member of GGLT for ten years or so. I have been the Lectures Secretary for several years and am always on the look out for interesting speakers.
As a member of the Events Group, I also help to organise our private garden visits during the summer. The GGLT library of around fifty garden history books, which are available for members to borrow at any time, has found a home in my house for the past few years.
Educational Role
Sue Bradley Jones
I have just joined the committee of the GGLT, with a particular interest in developing an educational role, as it hasn’t had one before. My past horticultural experience and interests include some years as a garden designer and many years as a guide at Westonbirt House and Arboretum. I have helped arrange talks and walks at the Arboretum . My contact with the educational world now is as a school governor.
One of the stated aims of the GGLT is to “stimulate interest in the arts and skills of gardening” and we want to pas on our enthusiasm for our extraordinary rich garden heritage to as many people as possible. The more we value and enjoy our historic garden and landscape creations the better we can protect them, and perhaps provide inspiration to add to this legacy for the future.
Many of the other county trusts already have a well-developed educational programme, especially in stimulating schools gardening, but our Gloucestershire trust has not had any educational projects so far. We hope to remedy that by developing over time a varied programme of ideas and actions. These are early days, but already we have decided that one focus should be on our county’s historic fruit varieties, and we are locating places such as community gardens where they could be planted. Other possibilities could be to run workshops and visits connecting urban communities to our historic landscapes, to provide financial support for community led landscape restoration and to bring recognition to the smaller scale garden history of the county, such as its ancient allotments.
All these ideas presuppose a budget to support them, so a first step is to establish one, and we must increase our membership to help with that.
Anybody with an interest in being involved in this aspect of the GGLT’s role, please get in touch.
GGLT Research
Thoss Shearer
Thoss Shearer is involved in GGLT’s research and coordinates the Gloucestershire Gentlemen Clothiers project (jointly sponsored by GGLT and Stroudwater Textile Trust).
He is a former senior civil servant, having worked in the Business Department, the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Government Office for the South West. His lifelong interest in architecture and architectural history led him into a complementary interest in landscape design and garden history. He lives in Uley.