Tim Mowl is Director of the MA, which is now in its eighth year. The degree is taught by staff in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology at the University of Bristol, together with contributions from the Department of History of Art and visiting lecturers in the field of garden history. The course aims to provide students with an informed knowledge of how gardens and designed landscapes may be understood as cultural artefacts, primarily through the study of British garden history. The focus is on an integrated approach to landscape and garden art, architecture and design in their cultural and social contexts.

The core syullabus includes a practical introduction to interpreting archaeological, physical and visual evidence, and to conservation and management issues. Teaching consists of lectures and seminars, but the majority of the taught sessions are study visits to gardens and landscapes both in England and abroad, many of which are privately owned. The MA begins with an introductory, three-day, visit to major landscapes where students are encouraged to walk the grounds and consult documentary sources in their analysis of the sites. In October 2007 the study weekend will be based in Woodstock, Oxfordshire and the gardens will include Blenheim, Heythrop, Shotover and Rousham. There is also the option to study gardens abroad, and in May 2008 the focus will be gardens in Milan and around the Italian Lakes.

With a Humphry Repton landscape garden at its centre, its own Botanical Garden, and the eighteenth-century Goldney garden famous for its Grotto with all its shells, crystals, statuary and waterworks in Clifton, the University of Bristol starts with some inherited advantages for offering a course in Garden History. Within easy reach around Bristol there are numerous important gardens. Some are celebrated like Stourhead's classical landscape, and the Painswick Rococo Garden with its gentle Pan worship. Others are unfamiliar masterpieces, such as Stancombe's Wagnerian secret valley, Piercefield with its precipice walk, or the Edwardian garden at Barrow Court designed as if for lavish open air living in the style of that bohemian coterie the Souls.

For further information about the course contact:

Alison Johnston: +44 (0)117 954 6069

Email: alison.johnston@bristol.ac.uk