Cataloguing Highlights from the Marney Hall Archive
by Alexandra Sullivan, Project Archivist
It has been fascinating getting to know ecologist and garden designer Marney Hall through her archives, including her inspirations, and her method of working. She is perhaps less well known than some of the other garden designers whose papers we hold in the Archive of Garden design (as I found while searching online for information about Marney when writing her biography for the catalogue record). I hope this blog, and the catalogue of her archives, will help to remedy that, and bring Marney’s work the recognition it deserves. I have chosen a few highlights from the collection to share with you.
What is Cataloguing?
• Cataloguing is the listing and description of archive material, usually on a computer database.
• The catalogue starts with the collection as a whole (e.g. 20 boxes), then describes component parts at lower levels (e.g. a file of letters).
• The purpose of cataloguing is for staff and researchers to be able to find information about the archive collection.
• Information added to a catalogue includes the number of items, the dates of the material, and a brief description of the contents of each file.
Brief Biography of Marney Hall
Marney L. Hall (née King) (1949- 2020) was an award-winning garden designer from St Ives (in Cambridgeshire, England) who championed the use of native wildflowers to attract birds, bats, and butterflies.
Marney left school in 1968, and started work at Monks Wood Experimental Station in Cambridgeshire, studying butterfly behavior. She attempted to reintroduce the swallowtail butterfly at Wicken Fen nature reserve, and ran a national scheme for monitoring butterflies in the UK. Marney published scientific papers and magazine articles about her research.
Marney left Monks Wood in 1989 to establish the Cambridgeshire Countryside Centre Ltd. (later known as Countryside Wildflowers), to grow and sell British wildflowers. The company won four consecutive gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, and their Wildflower and Seaside Garden was awarded the show’s highest accolade, the Fiskars Sword, in 1993. Marney won further awards for the gardens she exhibited at the Chelsea, Hampton Court, and Gardeners’ World shows in the 1990s and 2000s. She was also successful at garden design competitions in Japan and the USA.
Her interest in wildlife stayed with her after she stopped working as a scientist, and was a key consideration for her garden designs. Marney was a committee member of Holt Island nature reserve in St. Ives, where projects included educating children about plants and animals. Marney regularly shared her expertise on butterflies with the Radio 4 Natural History programme, and with various local radio stations, and appeared as an expert guest on the Big Breakfast and Gardeners’ World television programmes.
Marney’s prolific portfolio of work included community garden projects in her home county of Cambridgeshire, such as school and hospital gardens. The Norris Museum Garden was designed to be wheelchair accessible, and aimed to provide textured, ‘boldly coloured’ and scented plants for people with learning difficulties and visual impairments. She also designed private gardens, including Professor Stephen Hawking’s garden.
Highlights of the Collection
Scrapbook of Marney’s Career Highlights, 1993 – 2005
This scrapbook was compiled by Marney as a beautiful visual record of her garden design career. It contains a mixture of material (press cuttings; correspondence; show garden awards; leaflets; drawings, and photographs). The scrapbook provides a really useful overview of the gardens she designed and co-created, and charts Marney’s progression from wildflower grower for other garden designers, to award winning garden designer. I would recommend this scrapbook as the perfect item for researchers looking to get a summary of Marney’s work. The scrapbook tells us what Marney considered to be her biggest achievements, which alongside the more obvious show garden medals, also include thank you letters, articles written about her work, and mementos of meeting Ringo Starr.
I chose this scrapbook as one of my favorite items because it has been like a handbook for me during this cataloguing project. I found it really helpful that the scrapbook is in chronological order, and includes photographs of the gardens Marney worked on, as this helped me to identify untitled photographs of gardens elsewhere in her archive.
Garden Restoration ‘Problems and Pitfalls’, January 2002
Marney gave lectures about topics ranging from running her own business, to creating wildlife friendly gardens. One of her talks, delivered in September 2002, was described by Trinity College Cambridge’s head gardener as ‘a good mix of naturalist’s knowledge, and practical gardener’s methods’. Earlier that year Marney wrote ‘Top twelve Problems and Pitfalls: Garden Re-creation and Restoration.’ I chose this item because it shows us Marney’s wealth of knowledge and experience, as well as giving us a glimpse of her sense of humour.
Marney recommended starting with a survey of the topography, vegetation, and wildlife, then writing a report for funders setting out objectives for the project to persuade them that ‘… parting with their money is a good idea.’ On the subject of insurance, Marney states ‘we’re all friends together, but if someone trips over your rake and cracks their skull, then all of a sudden we may not be quite so friendly … so do make sure you have adequate cover.’ On a more serious note, she advises checking for protected species such as great crested newts, doormice, and bats. She also advocates taking photographs at each stage of the restoration as a reminder of ‘… what a site was like when you started and … as an inspiration when you feel as if you have achieved nothing.’ Writing a diary is also recommended as ‘… you may need to know that Fred Bloggs was not on site the day he claims he sprained his ankle …’ Marney leaves arguably her most important piece of advice for last: ‘Have fun – when it ceases to be fun, stop doing it!’
Inspiration Boards for Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, March 2008
Upon opening the Addenbrookes Hospital garden project file, you are presented with three colourful inspiration boards (see the image at the top of this page) which tell us Marney’s creative method of garden design, as well as showing us her vision for the garden. At a design team meeting on 27 March 2008 Marney poetically described her vision for the garden as ‘… using a controlled palette of plants to create a visual harmony … Formal planting of trees will be softened with rhythmic underplantings of grasses, bulbs and perennials.’ Marney wanted the plants to ‘… give pleasure to the observer and great visual interest to the visitors.’ She also catered for wildlife, ensuring the ‘… biodiversity of wildlife will have a positive environmental effect.’ She favoured native trees and shrubs, such as crab apples, wild cherries, roses, and dogwood, as well as plants which provided berries for birds overwinter, such as pyracantha. Fragrant plants such as jasmine and clematis were also chosen – the garden plan below shows us that these were planted near the seating area for the enjoyment of garden visitors.
Concluding Thoughts
I have really enjoyed working with Marney’s archive, which is a valuable addition to the Archive of Garden Design collection. I am sure it will be of great interest to a range of researchers, including garden design students, ecologists, and (like me) amateur gardeners looking for inspiration at a time when it is more important than ever to attract, and provide shelter and food for, butterflies and moths. Marney’s passion for pollinators has inspired me to purchase a butterfly barn, and butterfly food for my garden.
If you are looking for ideas to create your own wildlife haven, why not email archives@gardenmuseum.org.uk to book an appointment to see Marney’s archive.