Ahead of Lost Gardens of London opening on Weds 23 October, we look at the history of The RHS’s London gardens. Extracted from Lost Gardens of London by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan:
In the late 1850s, the Horticultural Society of London, later the Royal Horticultural Society, was on its uppers. However, ‘at its utmost hour of need, when nought but speedy extinction looked it in the face, the Prince Consort took it by the hand, and, as it were with a word, raised it to its feet and restored it to vigour, giving it strength and resources beyond any it had previously possessed’; he furthermore ‘raised, as if by enchantment, the Arcadian Garden at South Kensington; organised the International Exhibition of 1862, and pointed the way for the Society participating in its advantages’.
When the Society was formed in 1804, it was resolved that its objects should be to ‘collect every information respecting the culture and treatment of all plants and trees, as well culinary and ornamental’ and ‘to foster and encourage every branch of Horticulture, and all the arts connected with it’. For several decades they tried unsuccessfully to cultivate experimental and exhibition gardens, first at Kensington and latterly in Chiswick. These, and other initiatives, proved such a great drain on its resources that by the 1850s the society was faced with financial ruin.
In 1858, the Prince Consort – who was then resident of both the society and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 – recommended that the RHS lease a twenty-two acre (9-hectare), rectangular plot at the heart of the commissioners’ South Kensington estate – part of which included the site of George London and Henry Wise’s celebrated Brompton Park Nursery – with a view to developing it into an extraordinary show garden. This they did, and at great expense.
The prince, who took an inordinate interest in the project, determined that its layout should be Italianate and geometrical and that the landscape gardener William Nesfield should be entrusted with its design and execution. Work began in 1859 and was completed the following summer. The garden, which Punch christened ‘Arcadia’, was formally inaugurated on 5 June 1861. It was laid out in a series of terraces on a gentle, south-facing slope and was enclosed entirely by arcades based on those at the Villa Albani and at the Lateran outside Rome. An immense glass-and-iron conservatory was erected at the upper end of the garden that contained ‘all that is most rare or most beautiful in the vegetation of temperate climates’; this surveyed extensive ‘geometric’ gardens enlivened by vases, statuary, basins, fountains, canals, a cascade, ‘band houses’, a maze, and highly decorated compartments of flowers.
The garden was praised in the Athenaeum: ‘in these magnificent arcades we have something new to our country and our century – something exquisitely Italian, and shady and cool; that in these succession of terraces, in these artificial canals, in these highly-ornamental flower-walks, we have something of the taste and splendour of Louis Quatorze. It was of such a garden as this that [Francis] Bacon must have dreamt.’
The ‘Royal Founder’, who had a grand vision for the development of the precinct into what later became known as ‘Albertopolis’, declared that the garden was to form ‘the inner court of a vast quadrangle of public buildings . . . where science and art may find space for development, with the air and light which are elsewhere nigh banished from this overgrown metropolis’. It was ‘“the attempt at least,” as he humbly expressed it, “to reunite the science and art of gardening to the sister arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting”’.
While the society shared some of these princely ambitions, they were determined that the gardens should promote ‘Scientific Horticulture’ and should remain exclusive to the use of their membership. The Consort, on the other hand, favoured throwing them open to the public. The society was not, however, in a position to dictate the terms of the future use and development of the gardens, as it was constantly short of money. It was, nonetheless, disquieted by accusations in the press that its lavish gardens were likened to ‘a very charming addition . . . to the fashionable lounges of the West-end’ and a ‘fine art’ establishment, and acknowledged that the smoke of Victorian London was becoming a menace to their cultivation. Matters were also made more difficult by the death of the Prince Consort in December 1861 which ‘deprived the Society of strong guidance and no doubt contributed to the subsequent decline of its fortunes and to its ultimate inauspicious departure from South Kensington’. After many years of a deteriorating and often awkward relationship with the commissioners, the society finally forfeited the gardens in 1888. Within four years, Imperial Institute Road and Prince Consort Road were thrust across the former gardens, and the remainder of the site was soon obliterated by new development.
—
Extracted from Lost Gardens of London by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan published by the Modern Art Press (and distributed by Yale University Press), available now in the museum shop.