Michael Gilson’s new book, takes a look back at how the suburban garden as we know it now, took shape
Take yourself back to the Britain of 100 years ago. Barely recovered from a brutal war that took the lives of millions and traumatised as many, the nation was nevertheless in the midst of a peculiar kind of social revolution.
For there were no protests in the street, no placard-waving crowds calling for social justice. There was, though, amarch of another kind by a new army with a very different purpose. At the front of its columns came the privet hedge, the standard and tea rose, followed by petunias, pansies, pinks, dahlias, daffodils, geraniums, sunflowers, hollyhocks, poppy, nasturtium, lupin, lavatera, polyanthus, antirrhinums and asters. In the rear were potatoes, cabbages, onions, turnips, parsnips, carrots, like the Webb’s standard, and the odd apple and ‘Morello’ cherry tree. Across the country in the space of a few short years this new movement transformed the grey war-weary nation, leaving colour and vitality in its wake.
The members of this fighting force? New suburban gardeners.
What is often overlooked by historians is that the government’s Homes Fit for Heroes new house building programme after World War One not only ushered in the decent living conditions demanded by millions of working class people no longer prepared to tolerate inner city slums. It also added something the majority had never experienced before. For along with the new house came a small patch of land at the back, roughly 400 square yards left muddy and cluttered with construction debris by builders – the garden.
The need for new health giving open air space for residents had been recognised by the government but that was about as far as it went.
Now tens of thousands of new tenants were confronted with a huge challenge. How were they to convert this scrappy patch into something they could enjoy if they had no
