Tuesday, February 16, 2021

An Elizabethan Garden Discovered

 From Smithsonian:

Archaeologists conducting excavations near Birmingham have discovered one of the best-preserved Elizabethan gardens ever found in England. As BBC News reports, no historical record of the 16th-century gardens, which stretch across nearly 1,000 feet of land on the ruins of a manor in Coleshill, exist. [T]here are no plans of it, [and] it is not mentioned in any letters or visitors’ accounts,” says Paul Stamper, an expert on English gardens and landscape history, in a statement.

Aerial photographs taken in preparation for construction of the United Kingdom’s HS2 high-speed railway revealed the first signs of the remains of Coleshill Manor. Over the past two years, researchers with Wessex Archaeology have unearthed additional traces of the Tudor estate.

“This is one of the most exciting Elizabethan gardens that’s ever been discovered in this country,” says Stamper in the statement. “The scale of preservation at this site is really exceptional and is adding considerably to our knowledge of English gardens around 1600.” The estate’s medieval owner, Sir Robert Digby, rose into the aristocracy by marrying an Irish heiress in about 1598. (Read more.)


Share

No comments: