The Care and Conservation of Shared Georgian Gardens by John Byrom is a unique, richly illustrated handbook providing detailed guidance on the longterm management and maintenance of Edinburgh’s New Town Gardens. These 47 circus, square, crescent and informal grid-edge gardens form a major component of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town and the City’s UNESCO World Heritage Site. Intended specifically for garden management committees, the book has a wider purpose to inform an interested public and academic readership beyond Edinburgh on a subject hitherto unpublished.
The handbook is in 4 parts:
Part 1: introduces its garden subjects, their ‘family likeness’ and ‘preferred state’ within the Georgian aesthetic of the Picturesque
Part 2: provides detailed guidance on the forms and character of garden components: the woodland, shrubbery, lawns, borders and artefacts, each in their preferred state and as part of a hypothetical garden named ‘Regent Square Garden’
Part 3: considers the biodiversity of ‘Regent Square Garden’ relating to increasing intensities of use, and levels of management to improve its overall biodiversity
Part 4: applies the details of Parts 2 and 3 to the cyclical generic management of ‘Regent Square Garden’ over a period of 100 years
John Byrom is a landscape architect and former Director of the Masters in Landscape Architecture at the University of Edinburgh. In the 1960s, John was commissioned to appraise the condition of Edinburgh’s New Town Gardens by the Civic Trust as part of the survey which led to the creation of the Edinburgh New Town Conservation Committee. The work also became the basis of his late wife, Connie Byrom’s book The Edinburgh New Town Gardens (Birlinn, 1995).
John Byrom was subsequently commissioned by Edinburgh World Heritage Trust to produce a handbook in response to a perceived need for professional advice on their appropriate maintenance and replanting of the New Town gardens. The project was overseen by a steering group chaired by Professor David Ingram, former Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
The book is published in association with Edinburgh World Heritage Trust as a contribution to marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town.
Publication Date: June 2018
This publication is supported by The Stanley Smith (UK) Horticultural Trust, Edinburgh Decorative and Fine Art Society, Historic Environment Scotland and the F.E Cleary Heritage Fund.
224 pages; ISBN: 978-0-9930544-3-3
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