A Crisis in Garden Preservation: A Joint Program by the Gardens Trust & the Garden Conservancy on Garden Preservation in England and America

Last year, the UK government proposed eliminating the statutory role of the Gardens Trust, which requires local governments to consult them on development plans affecting gardens and parks of national significance (registered Grade I and II landscapes). Join Gardens Trust Director Linden Groves, Board Member Dr. Victoria Thomson, Garden Conservancy President & CEO James Brayton Hall, and Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation President Benjamin Prosky for a discussion of this consequential development in Anglo-American perspective. The loss of the Gardens Trust statutory role would be a major blow to garden preservation not just in England, but around the world. The English model—robust protections enshrined in UK law—has long been the envy of preservationists in places like America, where protections are far weaker. 

About the Speakers



LINDEN GROVES is Director of the Gardens Trust, UK. She has worked in the landscape conservation sector for almost 30 years, starting as Assistant Editor of Historic Gardens Review before becoming part of the conservation team of the Garden History Society, and then taking a role with the Association of Gardens Trusts on its volunteer capacity-building project in 2013. Her co-authored book The Gardens of English Heritage won the Garden Media Guild’s “Inspirational Book of the Year” award in 2010, and she is now working on a history of playgrounds. 

DR. VICTORIA THOMSON is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Gardens Trust, UK. She is a Chartered Town Planner and a full member of the Institute for Historic Building Conservation, and her work has included stints in local and national government, academia, and now consultancy. Her interests are very much focused on historic parks and gardens, and particularly on their protection, and she writes regularly on these topics on her personal blog.

JAMES HALL joined the Garden Conservancy as president and CEO on June 1, 2017. For the previous four years, he was deputy director of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he worked on the planning and design of the Norman Foster-designed museum expansion and sculpture gardens. From 2010 to 2013, he was executive director of the Providence Preservation Society in Rhode Island, overseeing all programming, fundraising, and relations with the board, donors, and community. From 2006 to 2010, James served as assistant director of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, after holding various other management and curatorial positions at the school since 1985. 

Benjamin Prosky currently serves as President of the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation, which advances education, innovation, and stewardship in the fields of historic preservation, decorative arts, and historic landscapes. He has previously served as Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY) | Center for Architecture; Assistant Dean for Communications at Harvard Graduate School of Design and Director of Special Events and External Affairs at Columbia University, GSAPP. Prosky has also worked internationally, holding positions at The Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal and Institut francais d’architecture in Paris. In 2009 he co-founded, Architizer.