The Great Geranium Robbery!

For our February talk we will meet as usual at Shurdington (weather permitting) and our speaker will be 'beamed onto' the big screen, via Zoom.

Recommended to us by the Chair of another Plant Heritage local group, David has been lecturing 'live' and online about every aspect of the history of gardens, landscapes, for more than 25 years to groups and museums like the V&A & across higher education.  A former Head Teacher, he took early retirement, went back to education and ended up doing a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London on The Gardens and Gardeners of Later Stuart London. A trustee of the Gardens Trust, he writes their weekly blog and is currently an honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham.

"If all that sounds posh" he says: "rest assured I'm not!".

After quite a lot of difficulty deciding which of David's many tempting talks to go for, we settled on the Great Geranium Robbery which tells the tale of the theft of rare geraniums and ericas in 1795, from the grounds of Daniel Grimwood's nursery in Kensington.  A suspect was quickly identified and arrested but strongly protested his innocence.....this is the story not just of the court case that focussed on the stolen geraniums but the way that the range of plants in Britain's gardens increased so rapidly and the ways that plant nurseries operated. It might sound dull and boring but its anything but!

As usual the meeting will be followed by tea/coffee and scrumptious cake. Please don't forget to bring prizes for the raffle and any interesting seasonal plants to show to the group.

Please arrive from 1.45pm so we can be ready to start the talk at 2.15pm promptly.