Iconic C20 Landscapes - Denmans Garden
In 1980 John Brookes moved to Denmans, a West Sussex property that became not only his home but also his garden design school and experimental garden. The first part of this talk by Barbara Simms, details the early history of the nineteenth-century site, once the home of the Denman family, and then the development of a market garden and later an ornamental garden by the Robinsons in the early post-war decades. Mrs Robinson’s innovative gravel garden formed the basis of Brookes’s garden, which introduced a stronger design, a pool to culminate the dry gravel streams and additional native and exotic plants. These experiments paralleled the design and planting concepts used in his clients’ gardens and those he outlined in articles, lectures and his books. In the four years before Brookes’s death in March 2018, Denmans went through a critical and potentially high-risk period. The second part of this talk focuses on the efforts to restore the garden starting in December 2017, how these efforts evolved after Brookes’s death and, looking to the future, what historic resources will be used to help create a conservation plan for the future.
Time: 18:00 GMT
