Private places, public spaces

The garden and imagination can be found entwined throughout the 19th century. This is famously demonstrated in Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan', whose fantastical enclosed landscape is a metaphorical representation of inspiration. In his beloved plot, behind Dove Cottage in Grasmere, William Wordsworth built terraces to help him beat out the rhythm of his verse. The tormented drama of Tennyson's 'Maud' points to a darker association of garden and mind.

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Alfred Lord Tennyson’s fair copy of Maud, written 1854. Add. MS 45741, f.279 Copyright © The British Library Board		Francis Bacon Of Gardens. Designed by Lucien Pissarro, 1902. C.99 b.3 Copyright © The British Library Board

Alongside these imaginative strands was another different set of traditions. The need to satisfy a burgeoning middle class seeking advice on what it could achieve gave rise to a demand for a new genre of garden writing, while the expansion of cities focused social commentators (such as George Eliot, Dickens and Ruskin) on the political and ethical need to provide green spaces for all.