The surprising origin story of Britain's love affair with suburban gardening.
It is said that Britain is a nation of gardeners and its suburban gardens with roses and privet hedges are widely admired and copied across the world. But how and why did millions across the United Kingdom develop an obsession with colourful plots of land to begin with? Behind the Privet Hedge seeks to answer this question and reveals how, despite their stereotype as symbols of dull middle-class conformity, these open spaces were once seen as a tool to bring about social change in the early twentieth century. The book restores to the story a remarkable but long-forgotten figure, Richard Sudell, who spent a lifetime evangelising for gardens as the vanguard of a more egalitarian society.
'Gilson's book is a charming and unexpected glimpse into how gardening took root as an obsession for millions, full of suburban heroes and villains, revolutions and conformity.'
John Grindrod, author of Iconicon: A Journey around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain
By:
Michael Gilson
Imprint: Reaktion Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
ISBN: 9781789148602
ISBN 10: 178914860X
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 01 August 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: On the train to Roehampton with Edith Sitwell and DH Lawrence Chapter One: 'A little Garden City' Chapter Two: 'An industrial slave? Never' Chapter Three: Trouble at the Whit Monday Garden Show Chapter Four: The Birth of beautification Chapter Five: Sudell the flower evangelist Chapter Six: 'Taste is utterly debased' Chapter Seven: 'There were little bridges, gnomes and things' Chapter Eight: An unrivalled influence on new nation of gardeners Chapter Nine: 'A new Britain must arise on better lines than the old' Chapter Ten: The landscape architect struggles to make a mark Chapter Eleven: 'An important and influential figure' Chapter Twelve: The importance of play Chapter Thirteen: Sudell urges us to invite Betty Uprichard into our garden Chapter Fourteen: 'Sudell has been proved right' References Acknowledgements Photo Acknowledgements Index
Michael Gilson is an award-winning editor and journalist, and Associate Fellow of the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex.
Reviews for Behind the Privet Hedge: Richard Sudell, the Suburban Garden and the Beautification of Britain
"""In this ground-breaking biography, a forgotten figure in 20th-century gardens is remembered as a true activist and small garden advocate . . . This excellent book rehabilitates and revivifies [Sudell's] reputation.""-- ""Gardens Illustrated"" ""A fine new book . . . it shows how the ubiquity of the surburban garden has had to be achieved in the face of planning opposition and how gardening managed to grow into an obsession for millions of people.""--Laurie Taylor, BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed ""Gilson's book is a charming and unexpected glimpse into how gardening took root as an obsession for millions, full of suburban heroes and villains, revolutions and conformity.""--John Grindrod, author of 'Iconicon: A Journey around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain' ""In a fascinating new study of Sudell and suburban gardens, Behind the Privet Hedge, the author Michael Gilson dubs his subject 'the patron saint of crazy paving.' He was also a radical, a democrat and a visionary.""-- ""The Guardian"" ""The radical demand for the right to a garden as part of the post-war covenant is much less well-known. Thanks to Behind the Privet Hedge, Michael Gilson's new history of the enthusiastic gardening movement that accompanied the public housing movement between the wars, that lack has now been remedied . . . a very good book.""-- ""The New English Landscape"" ""If Behind the Privet Hedge were simply a life of a professional gardener, it would be interesting enough . . . but this book is also a vivid picture of landscape architecture as it developed in the middle years of the century.""-- ""Daily Telegraph"""
