Theme summary: Garden

For early modern women, the garden could be a crucial space, both pragmatic and creative. Household manuals encouraged women to take control of the outdoor space, creating a unique site of female agency. Susanna would have tended gardens at both Hall’s Croft and New Place. Follow the links below for starting points to research garden history, or to follow a pathway through to how plants were used in medicine, explore our medical theme. Alternatively, return to the digital spatial archive to continue exploring this theme.

Return to the digital spatial archive.

In the Collection

A curated search on garden-related items in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archive and Collections can be viewed on the online catalogue.

Further Research

More in the SBT collection

Further curated searches re: garden items

External archive sources

Follow the links below to the archives and online resources to continue your research on this theme:

Follow the links below to a selection of archive and library resources relating to early modern gardens and gardening:

1. The National Archives have put together a resource guide on garden history records (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/garden-history-records-held-by-other-archives/)
2. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew care for a varied collection including an archive, this page gives information on their archive and further reading (https://www.kew.org/science/collections-and-resources/collections/archive-collection)
3. The archive of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh contains records dating back to the 17th-century (https://atom.rbge.org.uk/)
4. Archives relating to John Tradescant (d.1638), the English botanist, are held by the Bodleian Library, whilst the Ashmolean Museum holds Tradescant and his son’s collection of curios known as ‘The Ark’. See (https://britisharchaeology.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/collections/tradescant.html) for more information on The Ark.
5. The National Archives hold records on Captain Leonard Gurle who established one of the earliest plant nurseries in Britain in the 17th century.
6. Institute of Historical Research Garden History Collection
7. Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh,
8. Linnean Society of London
9. English Heritage Archives
10. The British Library online catalogue

Find out more

1. This blog by Stephanie Appleton explores the Elizabethan Knot Garden (https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-100-objects-elizabethan-knot-garden/)
2. This blog by Dr Jill Francis gives a brief introduction to early modern gardens, it is hosted by the Shakespeare Institute Library (https://silibrary1.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/sils-early-modern-gardens-exhibition/)