By Arthur Hellyer, Book Club Associates, 1977
8vo; first edition; hardcover; 280pp; illustrated with 28 colour plates, numerous monochrome photographs and hand-drawn maps; cover slightly scuffed; no dustjacket.
Arthur Hellyer was a well-known horticulturist who wrote numerous books including The Alphabet of Gardening and the Hellyer Gardening Encyclopedia. Hellyer wrote for Amateur Gardening magazine as well as contributing gardening columns to the Financial Times, Country Life and Homes and Gardens. Hellyer was also founder of the Hardy Plant Society.
The series of Shell Guides started in June 1934 with John Betjeman’s Cornwall. Long before Rough Guides and Lonely Planet, these guides were aimed at the new group of car-driving tourists who travelled around the English countryside. The series was sponsored by the oil company Shell.
The Shell Guide to Gardens begins with an overview of the history of garden design, followed by Hellyer’s recommendations of gardens to visit in Britain and Ireland. He writes: ‘My selection has been guided by two main objectives; one, that the gardens must contain sometihing of real interest to gardeners, whether by way of history, design or plants, and the other that it must be possible to visit them.’
It’s fun to compare how much or little the gardens have changed – for example the large rose garden in front of Syon House has long gone while the Moon Ponds and Temple of Piety at Studley Royal remain the same.
£6.50
1 in stock
