We have an interesting set of events for the year and are pleased to be able to share the event details, dates, ticket prices and booking arrangements with you.

Dr. Mark Spencer on Wild Plants in the Urban Environment

Thursday 23 January 7:00 on Zoom. 

Over 50% of the world’s population now live in urban areas, alongside them are found foxes, parrots, monkeys and plants, lots of plants. The street ‘weeds’ of our cities tell us as much about their lives as they do ours. Many a street corner will have its own flora, much of it ubiquitous but also sometimes unique. Naturalising loquat trees in London ‘map’ out the recent flourishing of Turkish and eastern Mediterranean communities here whilst the now rare London rocket attests to a history taking in the Roman conquest and the Great Fire of London. Cities are changed by plants and plants are changed by cities, many are evolving in different ways to their countryside cousins.

Dr Mark Spencer is an experienced and internationally respected botanist. His expertise covers many disciplines including forensic botany, the plants of North-west Europe, invasive species and the history of botanical science. He also works globally as a seasoned writer, public speaker and television presenter. As a forensic botanist, Mark has worked on various missing person enquiries, murders and other serious crimes.

David Douglas, Plant and Seed Collector, and his Scottish connections'

Saturday 22 February 11:00 at ARU Writtle College

A lecture by Caroline Holmes

Following a very successful talk last year when Caroline explored some of the greats of Edwardian garden design, their inspiration and what they have inspired, Caroline returns to give a new talk on the plant and seed collector, David Douglas. From the Douglas Fir, oaks and many other plants introduced by this intrepid explorer who made 3 major treks across North America in 1820s and 1830s, this talk will take a look at his Scottish contemporaries, the older Archibald Menzies and Thomas Drummond respectively of Araucaria araucana and Phlox Drummondii fame.

Caroline Holmes has lectured extensively on garden history across the world. She is a University of Cambridge ICE Academic Tutor and Course Director and lectures for the Royal Horticultural Society, museums and online for The Gardens Trust and organisations worldwide. She is the author of 12 books including Monet at Giverny, Water Lilies and Bory Latour-Marliac, the genius behind Monet’s water lilies; Impressionists in their Gardens; Follies of Europe: Architectural Extravaganzas; and in 2020 Where the wildness pleases – the English Garden celebrated.

Tour of Benton End House and Garden

Wednesday 14 May 10:30 Benton End near Hadleigh, Suffolk. 

Guided tour of the gardener and artist Cedric Morris’s house and garden by the Benton End House and Garden Trust.

EGT is making a return visit this year following a quickly sold out tour last year, hopefully to coincide with irises in bloom. The garden is in the process of revival following its heyday during Morris’s lifetime, so the visit will provide the opportunity to view work in progress. The group will be split in half, with half beginning with a tour around the house by Matthew Hodges, Manager of the Trust, focussing on some history of the 16C building and with the main focus on Cedric and his partner’s Arthur Lett-Haine's time here 1940-1982. The garden portion of the tour will then focus on the history of Cedric's garden and cultivating and the ongoing revival. There is a break halfway through for a cuppa and a biscuit and then the groups swap over. House tours take approximately 50 mins as do the garden tours.

Benton End is a Grade II* listed 16th century, half-timbered house, situated on the edge of the historic market town of Hadleigh, Suffolk. The house enjoys a commanding position overlooking the Brett Valley.

Benton End was the home of Cedric Morris – an important figure in the worlds of both art and horticulture. The house and garden where he lived with his partner Lett Haines for four decades from 1940 served as a home, an art school, a place for creative self-expression and at various times, a residential medical centre offering gardening and horticultural therapy, and as an important site in queer history, offering a safe space for persecuted gay men. Benton End brought together a rich array of people from a range of disciplines – including art, horticulture, cuisine, literature and illustration – who came to study, to garden or to socialise.

Benton End was a sanctuary for a diverse range of influential artists, writers, musicians, and botanists of the 20th century. Morris made a garden as influential in its day as Sissinghurst for its freedom of form and planting; it became one of the first modern gardens of naturalistic design, developed as it was for the study of the unusual plants Morris chose with his keen artist’s eye.

In 2021 Benton End was majority gifted to the Garden Museum by The Pinchbeck Charitable Trust with the aim of reopening the house and garden to the public once again. Work to preserve the house and garden is ongoing, ensuring that the rich history of Benton End is not forgotten. This is an ambitious project and it is anticipated the first phase will be the re-opening of the walled garden in 2026.

Talk and tour of Hatfield Forest

Thursday 17 July, at Hatfield Forest

Led by James Rowland, National Trust Properties Operations Officer.  Hatfield Forest is the best surviving example in Britain of an almost complete Royal Hunting Forest.  Traditional woodland management techniques of coppicing pollarding and grazing are continued there.  The ancient trees, some over 1000 years old, provide the perfect habitat for some of the Forest’s rarest insects, lichens and fungi, with the Forest overall hosting over 3,500 species of wildlife.