Exploring British Library and National Trust horticultural collections

Exploring British Library and National Trust horticultural collections

The Fellowship project feeds in to a 2025 exhibition at the British Library exploring the rich story of gardening and plants through its world-leading collections of horticultural books, manuscripts and other material. It will explore themes including plant life, community, colonialism and more, looking at the history of plants and gardens, and what they mean to us today. The British Library and the National Trust have significant collections of horticultural and botanical books, manuscripts, visual material and more. The Library has several named collections featuring horticultural books, including those of Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Joseph Banks and John Evelyn. The Trust curates some of England’s most significant historic gardens and includes related horticultural and botanical collections in many of its country house libraries. This project will scope and research these horticultural collections, and explore the potential connections between them.
Funder: The British Library.
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    Item type:Research report,
    Horticultural Collections at the British Library & the National Trust: Project Report
    (2024-04-26)
    Murray, Grace
    The British Library (BL, or the Library) and the National Trust (NT, or the Trust) each have a rich relationship with the history of horticulture and botany. The aim of this June – September 2023 Doctoral Fellowship was to explore the relationship between gardens and books in the BL’s printed book collections and the NT’s libraries in its ‘garden properties’. The fellowship was divided into three parts. As a specialist in early modern print (1500-1700), I centred my research on annotation and reader interventions in early garden and plant books, and for the British Library I produced a searchable spreadsheet of 271 copies of which 55% contained interventions (Part One and Appendix A). On the basis of a similar survey of annotated material at NT properties using the Library Hub Discover and Trust catalogues and with additional support from NT colleagues, I selected six properties to research further, most of which have received little attention for their gardens & landscapes: Ormesby Hall (North Yorkshire), Treasurer’s House (North Yorkshire), Felbrigg Hall (Norfolk), Kingston Lacy (Dorset), Calke Abbey (Derbyshire) and Ham House (Richmond). At these properties I investigated annotation practice in garden books printed between 1500 and 1900, supplemented by manuscript material (Part Two). My research at both organisations fed into overall preparations for the BL’s ‘Gardening’ exhibition, supported by NT loans and possibly satellite exhibitions (Part Three). Additional project outputs include talks, conference papers & articles, as well as suggestions for further research.
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