Geoffrey Jellicoe

The first of these two pre-war studies, Gardens & Design, was written in 1927 together with Jock Shepherd, Jellicoe's collaborator on an earlier work - Italian Gardens of the Renaissance . In their thought-provoking study the authors analyse the influences and elements that unite house and garden, palace and scape. town and country, taking as ideal examples Little Thakeham in Sussex, the Villa Gamberaia outside Florence, and Versailles, while at the same time stressing by example the importance of many other houses and gardens in this country and on the Continent, and illustrating the text with some 175 black and white photographs and 30 line drawings. At the tail end of the twentieth century much of the content of Gardens & Design may appear to be no more than we are used to reading in the books on garden design which now proliferate. But in 1927 its message could not have been more vital and exciting: garden design was to be seen as an art rather than as an appendage to horticulture. Furthe