Grant secures 'treasure trove' of information on historic gardens
Posted on 26 January 2005
The award, by the Heritage Lottery Fund to the Parks and Gardens Data Partnership (PGDP), will help to establish a huge information base to guide conservation and sympathetic new works. The PGDP comprises the Association of Gardens Trusts (AGT), The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust and the Department of Archaeology at the University of York.
The database will collate existing and new data, including research already carried out by many of the 7,500 members of the AGT through its 35 constituent County Garden Trusts on gardens such as Osterley Park in West London and Wentworth Castle in South Yorkshire.
Carole Souter, Director of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said: "The UK's parks and gardens are a much loved part of our heritage. This exciting national project will create a treasure trove of information about these open spaces, which are as important to us today as they were to our forbears."
AGT Project Director Peter Lindesay said: "With heritage under threat from many quarters, it is pleasing to announce this grant. This three-year project will provide opportunities for local people, as volunteers and partners, to get involved in actively researching and recording their local historic parks and gardens. The aim is to draw together disparate, diffused resources to create a freely available source of information for the historic designed parks, gardens and landscapes of the United Kingdom.
"It will provide detailed profiles of particular sites and thematic trails around garden and landscape styles, features and designers. At the same time the project will provide training and support for volunteer, professional and academic contributors to use the system and a robust content management system to enable the information resource to be refreshed and expanded."
Mr Lindesay said the project would ensure the information volunteers had collated was held on a central database and made available to the widest possible audience.
The Head of the University of York's Department of Archaeology Jane Grenville said: "This represents an important reiteration of the central place that conservation, landscapes and databases hold for the Archaeology Department.
"The database was conceived in York, in the former Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies and launched here in 1994. After a period of zero funding, we are hugely grateful to our partners at AGT for their unswerving dedication to the bid and to the HLF for their generous support."
Notes to editors:
- For more information on the project contact Peter Lindesay, e-mail peter@lindesay.demon.co.uk.
- For more information on the work of the County Gardens Trusts contact Kate Harwood, e-mail: agt@gardens-trusts.org.uk or visit www.gardenstrusts.org.uk.
- View The University of York's Department of Archaeology website.