Countryside Management Association News

Parks & Gardens
A researcher’s guide to sources for designed landscapes

Revised by David Lambert it is advertised as:

"The third edition of this popular handbook* presents an invaluable introduction to and summary of printed and documentary sources in Britain for those seeking to research the history of a particular designed landscape. It provides an excellent starting point to a research programme, describing the main types of sources, the principal repositories and offers pointers for the online researcher.

Relevant to parks, cemeteries and other types of designed landscape as well as gardens, this new edition will provide an indispensable tool for those putting together grant applications as well as those simply wanting to know more about a particular place or interested in restoring a local landscape. Out of print for several years, the text has been fully revised and updated and will be published in an accessible new format in its third edition later this Spring, with the support of English Heritage.

*Previously published as Researching a garden’s history, written by David Lambert, Peter Goodchild and Judith Roberts (2nd edition, 1995)

David Lambert has over twenty years experience in researching historic parks and gardens. A former research fellow at the University of York and at De Montfort University, he is currently an external examiner for the MA in Garden History at the University of Bristol. Formerly Conservation Officer for the Garden History Society, he is now a director of the Parks Agency, specialising in the history and management of public parks. He has carried out numerous historic landscape surveys and written widely on designed landscapes and conservation."

Specifications: 64 pages, 246 x 189mm, 23 black-and-white illustrations
ISBN 0 9518 3778 8
Publication date: 3 July 2006
Recommended retail price: £9.99

To order visit the online bookshop, call Kelly Clark on 01737 779257 or email subs@landscape.co.uk

Published by Landscape Design Trust, Bank Chambers, 1 London Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 1LY

Natural England has welcomed the ratification by the UK government of the Council of Europe’s European Landscape Convention (ELC) - the first international convention to focus specifically on landscape. It provides a basis for closer co-operation on landscape issues across Europe. For example, it will help raise best practice in the planning, protection and management of landscapes.

Natural England will be working with government and others in England and across UK to develop an implementation strategy to help promote and develop the principles of the ELC further through their own work and advice, and with stakeholders and the public.

The ELC defines landscape as ‘an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors’. It is based on the premise that landscape, whatever quality, whether rural or urban, built or natural should be recognised, understood and fully integrated into policy and decision-making. It recognises that landscape has important cultural, ecological, environmental and social dimensions and is a key element of achieving sustainable development.