Writtle University College Peoples Choice Award 2022

‘Essex Garden’s Trust were delighted again in 2022 to sponsor the People’s Choice Award, a prize voted for by visitors to the Design Exhibition. The standard of work was incredibly high and covered a range of topics based on locations in Essex and further afield. Each student had spent an incredible amount of time researching their site before exploring and then designing an imaginative piece of work. Ecological considerations were evident in many designs as was the importance of open space to our mental health.

This year’s winners were:

Essex Gardens Trust People’s Choice Undergraduate Award

Jake Wakefield

‘Healing Waters- Enhancing Ecological and Human Systems on the River Stort’

Essex Gardens Trust People’s Choice Postgraduate Award

Meg Cowell

‘Rural Connections- Re-identifying Bradwell Power Station on a Recreational Coastline’

Our congratulations go to both students.’

Travel Bursary for Academics Award 2020

The 2020 Bursary was awarded to Dr. Twigs Way, who travelled to visit the early twentieth century gardens on the French and Italian Riviera around Menton and Ventimiglia. Note that due to Covid this took place in 2022.

In the late 19th/early 20th century the Riviera became a centre for a particular type of Edwardian ‘social horticulture’ with gardens developed by English and American garden designers, writers and artists. For the more serious plant collectors the warmth of southern France and Italy allowed establishment of a wide range of newly introduced plants. These gardens are often directly ‘twinned’ with English counterparts. Ellen Willmott’s plant collections at Warley Place, Essex and Boccanegra in Ventimiglia (as well as Tresserve, France) or Humphry Waterfield’s gardens at Hill Pasture, Essex and Le Clos de Peyronnet, Menton. Lawrence Johnston created gardens at Hidcote, Gloucestershire and Serre de la Madone, Menton and the Hanbury’s owned Wisley, Surrey and La Mortola. Ventimiglia. Italian landscape and garden architecture was also transmitted back into England and America. Publications such as Edith Wharton’s Italian Villas and their Gardens 1903-4 and the Riviera-based work of artists such as Arthur Rowe and architect Harold Peto resulted in a rush of stonework, still pools, and fastigiate evergreens in England: seen for example on some of Peto’s work at Easton Lodge.