Outside the manor

If the influential Arts and Crafts design movement that emerged in late 19th century Great Britain was beset by contradictions, the same can be said for this book examining and extolling the innovations in gardens created by the period’s leading architects and horticulturists.

Anyone who thinks of Arts and Crafts as denoting a certain modesty in domestic scale and design will be surprised to find page after page of photos and drawings of multi-acre manors with tennis lawns, outbuildings and orchards.

These famous homes and gardens that once belonged to such Arts and Crafts royalty are fabulous to look at but hard to square with the notion that this was a movement formed in reaction to opulence of British Empire Victorianism.

The revolutionary landscaping idea of the Arts and Crafts movement was to eschew Victorian formality, embrace nature and see the house and garden as one, joined in a purifying simplicity. Exactly how all the elaborate topiary and finely clipped hedges on view here created a “natural” look is just one example of a subtle inconsistency Tankard does not explore for her modern reader despite an otherwise impressive amount of scholarly detail.

-- Sean Mitchell