Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Museum Gardens, their management and our approach to their future
Martin Watts, Director Knowledge and Learning, York Museums Trust
The Herbert Read Lecture

In England some cities are synonymous with botanic gardens: Oxford, Edinburgh and of course London. Since the mid 19th century York too has had a botanic garden. Yorkshire has a wonderful botanical and horticultural heritage epitomised by great gardens, great natural landscapes and great horticulturalists. Our Garden is a highly complex site with layer upon layer of historical significance and a huge range of demands made up on it by millions of users.This talk will explore the way the gardens have been used and managed in the last 10 years, how they are being managed today by York Museums Trust, and what are the developments and ideas for the future when once again we will have a Garden for York

Martin Watts started work with the Nature Conservancy Council in Northumberland and was then the National Trust warden for Bransdale for 10 years. As Curator of the Ryedale Folk Museum he instigated the historic gardens that accompany the rescued and restored medieval, 18th and 19th century cottages. He joined the York Museums Trust in 2002 and has worked with the Gardens Manager Sjaak Kastelijn and the Gardens team to develop the Museum Gardens.

Report
by Carole Smith

A Garden for York – open, inclusive, imaginative and friendly, the Museum Gardens is a public space of enormous private importance to the thousands who use it daily. It is a complex site containing the ruins of an abbey and a medieval hospital, a museum, a botanic garden, and horticultural displays, which each require careful management to make a successfully integrated space. A positive garden-identity is at the heart of the management style of recent years. Sjaak Kastelijn’s planting revolution has been greeted with enthusiastic appreciation; the soft security of relaxed, friendly garden guides, rather than militaristic park keepers, makes for a quiet space that promotes good behaviour. It has become a safer, cleaner, and much more attractively informative place, where locals and visitors (some 1.3 million every year) want to spend time.

Martin Watts, responsible for much of this transformation, and for this hugely enjoyable lecture, when questioned also confessed responsibility for removing (to safer accommodation) Percy, the last and much-missed peacock.