Competition: The Mollie Salisbury Cup

This year we are delighted to launch our first garden writing competition: The Mollie Salisbury Cup, kindly sponsored by the Cecil family. As befits an inaugural year, the theme for entries will be ‘My First Garden.’ This could be cress grown in an egg-shell at nursery school, building camps in a grandparents’ garden or helping to tend an allotment. Or, indeed, a first adult experience of gardening. The judges will be looking for evocative writing that captures the excitement, frustration and triumph of a first garden. The winner and two runners-up will be asked to read their work at the Garden Museum’s Literary Festival in London on 7^th and 8^th July. The winner will also receive a prize of £750, and the runners-up £250 each.

Entries should be no more than 2,000 words and should be emailed to memoir@gardenmuseum.org.uk by Friday 18^th May.

Judges for the Mollie Salisbury Cup 2018:

Lord Charles Gascoyne-Cecil is the son of the late Mollie Salisbury, holds degrees from Oxford University and is an asset manager.

Allan Jenkins is the award-winning editor of The Observer Food Monthly and the author of Plot 29 and Morning.

Tom Stuart-Smith is a trustee of the Garden Museum and a celebrated garden designer who has worked at Windsor Castle, Wisley and the Royal Academy.

Mollie Salisbury (1922 – 2016)

Mollie Salisbury was a celebrated garden designer whose glorious creation at Hatfield House, the Jacobean Cecil family home in Hertfordshire, has won plaudits from critics and visitors alike. Despite having no conventional training, her careful study of contemporary houses in England and Europe, and of Hatfield’s archives, led to a garden with formal and informal elements. She also created gardens for The Prince of Wales, Evgeny Lebedev and Peter Brant, among many others. Lady Salisbury worked tirelessly well into her eighties, and was an early campaigner for organic gardening. Her memoirs, A Gardener’s Life (Frances Lincoln, 2007), tell her remarkable story.

Terms and conditions:

The competition is open to individuals aged 18 and over, published or unpublished. To enter, send an original, unpublished piece of memoir writing, written in English, on the subject of ‘My First Garden’, of up to 2,000 words to memoir@gardenmuseum.org.uk.

The competition closes at midnight on Friday 18^th May 2018. Entries received after the closing date will not be considered. The winner will be selected by a panel of judges and will be based on literary merit, originality and readability. Entrants will be deemed to have accepted these terms and to have agreed to be bound by them.

The winner will have their writing published by the Garden Museum and a media partner, and will receive a £750 prize. Two runners-up will each receive a prize of £250. The winner and runners-up will be asked to read their entries at the Garden Museum literary festival in London on 7^th and 8^th July 2018.

This competition is not open to any employees of the Garden Museum, the promoter or their immediate families, the promoter’s advertising agency and sales-promotion consultancy, or anyone else connected with the creation and administration of the competition. Only one competition entry, fulfilling the eligibility requirements above, will be accepted per person. Once selected, only the winner(s) will be contacted personally by email, using the contact details provided upon entry.

 Entry to the competition and acceptance of the prize constitutes permission to use any entrant’s name, image and any competition-entry photograph, for promotional and/or editorial purposes in any format in print and non-print media without additional consultation. It is assumed that you have the permission of your employer for any time off work that is required to claim the prize. The Garden Museum or the third party are not liable in any way to any winner who cannot attend. Winners will be notified by 1^st July 2018.

By entering the competition and in consideration for the Garden Museum publishing your entry, you assign to the Garden Museum the entire worldwide copyright in your entry for all uses in all print and non-print media and formats, including but not limited to all rights to use your entry in any and all electronic and digital formats, and in any future medium hereafter developed for the full period of copyright therein, and all renewals and extensions thereof, any rental and lending rights and retransmission rights and all rights of a like nature wherever subsisting. The Garden Museum’s decision is final in every situation, including any not covered above, and no correspondence will be entered into in respect of the validity of any such decision. The Garden Museum shall be permitted to exclude or disqualify any entrant at any time at its sole discretion. The Garden Museum reserves the right to exclude late, incomplete or multiple registrations, or registrations made by third parties or agents. The Garden Museum does not accept any responsibility for late or lost entries. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt. The name of the winner(s)will be announced at the Garden Museum Literary Festival, 7^th and 8^th July 2018.

No purchase is necessary. Once entered, entries cannot be returned or withdrawn. Spammers will be disqualified. Prizes must be taken as stated, although the Garden Museum reserves the right to change the prize in the event of unforeseen circumstances. By entering the competition, you agree to the terms of the Privacy Policy. In addition, the Garden Museum may pass your personal information to the promoters of the competition (where it is not the Garden Museum) and their data processors. However, we always demand that any such parties adhere to the same security procedures that we follow ourselves. The Garden Museum reserves the right to (i) cancel and/or withdraw this competition and/or (ii) amend these terms, at any time without notice. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, in no event will the Garden Museum be liable, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, for any loss, damage or injury arising under or in connection with this competition. These terms are governed by English law, and entrants agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts in relation to all matters arising under or in connection with these terms.