The Arts and Crafts Garden (Shire Library)

The Arts and Crafts Movement flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, espousing a return to simplicity, craftsmanship and beauty from the artifice and intensity of Victorian industry. While perhaps most famous for its architecture and furniture, garden design was fully encompassed within the Movement and Gertrude Jekyll, Edwin Lutyens, Inigo Triggs and Samuel Elgood were very influential figures. This exploration of the principles of the Arts and Crafts garden explains the inspiration applied from Stuart garden and cottage garden design, the wild gardens with winding paths, the precisely clipped hedges, the formal terraces and the billowing border plantings of bulbs, herbs and climbers. From the most formally clipped topiary to the most informal-looking wild borders, everything was carefully designed, and most often accentuated by gazebos, gateways, sundials, topiary and ponds. This beautifully illustrated book throws open the gates to the Arts and Crafts Garden and gives an extensive list of the best examples of these gardens in the UK.