Kew Gardens: Seeing the wood for the trees

Earlier this year attention turned to Kew Gardens when it became apparent that severe funding cuts threatened its future. For years it had been primarily funded by its supporting Ministry, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from whom Kew once sourced 90% of its funding  - the remaining percentage being made up by self generated income. However as has occurred across the public sector, funding cuts have seen this figure plummet to 40% in recent years and, not surprisingly, this has left a large shortfall in the funding needed to keep the Royal Botanical Gardens operating as it once did.

The Pagoda

When my Dad first aired the news to me that Kew maybe threatened with public closure, I will admit to having been sceptical and even on our recent resulting visit, I maintained this opinion. I found it hard to believe that the institution - a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing some 40 listed buildings, and which produces leading scientific research - could ever face such a risk. But in researching this blog that naivety has been corrected and I realise now that the situation is actually much more precarious than I previously entertained.

For example, when we visited last Bank Holiday Monday I will admit to being a little shocked at the price of admittance for the Gardens, but actually now understand the reasoning for this, especially when you see the queues at each entrance to get in. The importance of the admission fee, restaurants and shops as well as the Gardens being available for venue hire and staging themed and seasonal events became shockingly apparent when doing research for this blog. Clearly, in order to make up that huge shortfall in the budget, they have to explore and exploit such ‘opportunities’ in order to sustain their existence. But just where are they going to find further opportunities to produce the extra revenue they will no doubt need if further cuts are implemented? And especially, without risk of pushing people too far and hiking prices to high?

In a bid to lessen the impact of cuts, Kew has recently undergone huge internal restructuring which unfortunately led to a large number of staffing cuts and the loss of decade’s worth of valuable research. But if budgets deficits are to continue in the fashion of the last two years, then Kew’s director Richard Deverell expects that measures such as this will only continue and two particularly unfavourable options may lie ahead. The first is further staffing cuts and the second, reduced seasonal public opening times (1). Uncertain times certainly lie ahead for Kew and I shall watch with interest how things develop, but for now I’m going to turn attention to our visit; for what we experienced was definitely somewhat of a mixed bag, I have to say!

Kew Gardens

What appealed to me about Kew was that it owes much to the tradition of ‘collecting’ that I have become fascinated with. Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries vast areas of the world were being discovered and explored, many for the first time, and there was huge desire amongst some sectors of society to own and/or collect as many samples of natural specimens as possible. And that’s exactly what happened. Specimens of plants and animals as well as artefacts and goods, began pouring into European ports from many far flung corners of the Earth and began to populate the collections of growing and emerging institutions, including Kew Gardens.

The Gardens are situated within an area that has long been associated with Royal residences and it’s through this association that the exotic garden at Kew Park developed. The Royal family took up residence in Kew and began to use it as a summer palace, during which time Princess Augusta, the mother of George III, began to expand it, recruiting the help of a succession of experts to landscape the grounds. Royal interest didn’t last long however and by the 1840s responsibility for the gardens had moved into the hands of the government. Over the next few decades the Royal Botanical Gardens experienced somewhat of a revival, in part owing to its new ‘purpose’ outlined as being ‘’the promotion of botanical science throughout the empire’, to the benefit of commerce as well as knowledge’ (1). It was a hive of activity as the scientific research conducted here began to inform work across the Empire, and, after receiving royal patronage, benefitted hugely from the construction of the railway and allowed for its role as a public attraction to grow. It was also during this period that some of the iconic buildings were constructed, in particular the famous Palm and Temperate houses.

One of Kew's famous Temperate Houses

Today, Kew Gardens has an equally respectable reputation, with its huge living and dried specimen stores which allow scientists access to an array of specimens, in order to continue carrying out cutting edge research, while hopefully is also working toward the preservation of species – an important task given that a quarter of known plant species are now under the threat of extinction. This newer aim is perhaps best illustrated by the opening of the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) at Wakehurst. Opened in 2000, the bank contains seeds from all over the world in what has been described as a ‘forward looking project’ that hopes to prevent ultimate extinction of species from across the world. More generally however the Gardens aims are now also more driven towards looking after plant collections, maintaining scientific work and providing education and access to the public.

So there’s the history but what did I make of our visit? Well, the Gardens weren’t exactly what I had pictured if I’m being honest. They are much more like a giant park with lots of trees and landscaped areas rather than what I would consider ‘gardens’ – there was a lack of rich and colourful flower beds to what I had expected.

But something unexpected made it that much more appealing to me. What I hadn’t realised was that was tucked away in corners of the Gardens, are properties that now belong to Historic Royal Palaces. And if I’m being honest this made the whole visit a lot more interesting for me, in particular when  I read that the Paddock near Queen Charlotte’s cottage once housed an assortment of exotic animals, described as ‘The Royal Menagerie’. This was news to me – I knew there were Royal Menagerie’s at Windsor Castle and the Tower of London but I hadn’t realised there was also one here too. I put that down to my weaker knowledge on Georgian period but having done a bit of research I can’t seem to find that much about it.

Queen Charlotte's Cottage

The Cottage was enjoyed as a picnic retreat by Queen Charlotte and her unmarried daughters when they stayed at nearby Kew Palace. The whole set up prompted me to think about the layout of Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna, originally established as the imperial menagerie by Holy Roman Emperor, Francis I in 1752. It was constructed around a central ‘observatory’ where the Imperial Family would have breakfast, with enclosures then radiating of each side. I was then a little disappointed when a quick search of the website revealed how George III and Queen Charlotte only really kept oriental cattle, Tartarian pheasants as well as Kangaroos – nothing terribly exotic (2). The menagerie lasted only a short time as by 1806 the order was given to turn the paddock into a flower garden – so it seems I might have let my imagination run away with me a little or at the very least our definitions of menagerie are very different.

Kew Palace

But what other secrets did Kew Gardens have to reveal? Well, it turns out the White House at Kew is where George III was incarcerated when he went ‘mad’ in 1788. This cloud marked the beginning of the end of the Royalty’s love with Kew Palace and its Gardens. The King suffered two further outbreaks of what experts think was Porphyria, in 1801 and 1804 and on each occasion was moved to Kew away from the public eye. It was also in this royal residence that in 1818 Queen  Charlotte later died, having witnessed the marriage of 2 of her sons to German Princesses during her supposed convalescence; one of which resulted in the birth of the future Queen, Victoria.

It seems Kew was not really used by royalty after the Georgian period. At the end of her long reign, Queen Victoria did open the palace to the public, in 1898, and in more recent history it has undergone major restoration and was reopened by HRP in 2006. (This is a real potted history – the guide book is full of information and interesting facts about each building).

The Clerk's Office in the Palace Kitchens

The results of this restoration on visitor experience are beyond what I’ve come to expect of HRP. It seems to have implemented a similar approach to that at Hampton Court Palace and has removed some of the boundaries and ‘stuffiness’ that once defined HRP properties. There was a particular instance when we were looking into one of the rooms in the Royal Kitchens and were able to walk right in and oddly enough, it felt as if we shouldn’t have done - like I’d just blatantly disregarded a barrier or ‘do not enter’ sign that would usually have stopped/prevented me from walking in and that some horrific alarm was about to blare out and prompt a member of staff to come running. But this didn’t happen and I was really surprised, so much so I commented on this to Dad and we were interrupted (in a good way) by a member of staff/volunteer who explained how pleased she was to hear those comments, remarking “great, we’re doing something right”. She went on to explain that it was the goal for visitors to feel as if they’ve just entered the room when the original occupant had just left and that is exactly the feeling I got. I also really liked the fact you could touch everything in the Clerk’s Office; the items and furniture were either replicas or items that you could handle and that was really great. It’s just not something I’d expect of HRP given that most of my childhood visits to these places were restricted by ropes, glass and closed doors.

The Alpine Garden

So how would I sum up our visit to Kew? Well the visit and the post-visit research I’ve done have both surprised me, in both a good way and not so good way. I loved finding the unexpected and that’s exactly what I got in discovering the historic properties and royal link – not to mention the ‘royal menagerie’. I was a little disappointed in the lack of ‘colour’ – there were lovely landscaped areas and it was full of character but it lacked colour and the sense of exotic I’d expected from the gardens. I really thought it was going to be a botanical showcase but it wasn’t.

However, am I glad I went? Yes I am, because I now appreciate what a loss it would be if funding cuts did bring about further staff cuts and restrict opening times. There were people queuing down the block to get in at each of the entrances we passed, cars circling for places to park and lots of families enjoying their day out to Kew. It’s a part of history – it’s seen and been involved in so much and so much can be learnt by a visit if you choose to engage rather than just walk and admire the beauty, which is an equally valuable option. I wouldn’t necessarily go again soon, but I’m definitely glad that I’ve visited at least once and would recommend it – especially if it’s a sunny day!

1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardenstovisit/11475478/How-Kew-Gardens-is-battling-to-survive.html  
2. http://www.hrp.org.uk/KewPalace/sightsandstories/buildinghistory/queencharlotte

A Change of Focus - The history of the slave trade as told in two different museums

Over the last month or so I’ve been fortunate enough to delve into an area of history that I haven’t looked at for quite a while. Once you find your area, the thing that makes you tick, that subject becomes all-consuming, taking all your energy and attention and for me that was the Victorian period and animal studies. But a friend of mine is doing a lot of research into the Slave Trade and I’ve recently joined her on a couple of museum visits, to view exhibitions focused on the topic.

Now the history of slavery and the abolition movement is something I have studied in the past. My first introduction to it being in Year 9, when I first engaged with the transatlantic slave trade and the ‘triangular trade’ and first heard of Olaudah Equiano. But it was some years before I returned to the subject again, when I opted in the second year of undergrad to take the History of the British Empire 1763-1900 module and would later write my essay on the importance of slave narratives to the abolition movement.

Museum of London Docklands
Authors own photo.

However, it’s been a refreshing change to return to the subject and divert my focus from the work I’ve been doing. To be able to engage with a different area of history and to view exhibitions as purely a visitor and not necessarily as a critic has been a rather nice position to be in. But I wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t have a few thoughts to share on what I’ve seen. There are two examples I’d like to discuss. The first being Museum of London Docklands Gallery, London, Sugar and Slavery , and the second, the M-Shed’s exhibition on Bristol’s involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Bristol People Gallery.

The first observation I have is how influential it can be visiting these sorts of places with someone who is so interested in and passionate about the subject that an exhibition or museum focuses on because when they engage, you naturally do as well. I’m really of the opinion that museums and galleries should be places of exchange and dialogue, not silent halls that epitomise that traditional, oppressive museum atmosphere. And when you visit with someone who is actively engaging with what they are looking at or reading, that’s exactly what you get and that is in so many ways more beneficial to your overall learning experience.

Often that other person will be able to tell you something that’s missing, or a different view point that they’ve read and you begin to see more of the bigger picture, than can be conveyed in that particular space or with the funds available. And I didn’t just notice this on these particular visits, but also when viewing a Monet exhibition with my friend who’s a Monet enthusiast and at the Freud Museum in Vienna, where my friend worked on a project to produce a walking tour. I can still tell you now things I learnt from those three individuals having visited places with them and engaged with their particular specific interests. I don’t proclaim to know anywhere near as much as they do, but I now know more because I was inspired by their enthusiasm to learn about those topics.

Plaque in the dock area
Authors own photo.

So what of the exhibitions we went to view. Well let’s start with London, Sugar and Slavery exhibition. If you’ve read my blog recently you’ll have seen how unimpressed I was with the Museum of London Docklands overall and many of those criticisms also, sadly, extend to this exhibit. At a theoretical level it’s fantastic and I base that assessment on what I understand of its aims – to readdress the narrative focus away from the efforts of the parliamentarians and to prioritise the experience of those enslaved; particularly dissenters and black abolitionists. But to be honest, you could have fooled me, the section on resistance being all too easy to overlook in favour the table where the bill was drafted. If it hadn’t been for my friend telling the aim of the exhibition and having done a little reading online, I’d have missed that completely if I’m honest. I felt it was badly executed, either that or its dated very badly since its unveiling in 2007.

Unfortunately it has adopted the “book on the wall” approach. There is loads of information, but I’d question its layout and also some glaring oversights. For example, in some cases there weren’t captions to pictures so you had no idea where they came from, who created them or who they featured. While in others instances where there were captions of who pictures depicted, there was limited information beyond a name so their relevance could easily be missed by an ‘unknowing’ visitor – thankfully I had an expert to assist!  I noticed this in particular about Mary Prince, a picture featured early on in the exhibition but her ‘role’ if you like, wasn’t explained until much later.

Captions at M-Shed
Authors own Photo

That said, there were some really interesting nuggets of information, but they were all too often buried in huge wads of text – personally I would have picked them out and centred them in some areas of blank space, of which there were quite a few. Drawing on my later example as comparison, Bristol did this particularly well, having quotes running round the top of the exhibition space and across the front of the display cases.

I would commend the use good use of oral testimony by the Museum of London, in the contemporary section of the exhibition and this added a level of engagement that otherwise was quite underwhelming. But again, I also felt there was a missed opportunity to show the modern link to human trafficking in the 21^st century, especially in terms of connecting with a younger audience. So often youngsters question why the past is relevant and I think this exhibition could have provided a strong example of why it is and why it’s important to possess knowledge of history. As I said of the whole museum, it just felt very flat and lacking in anything that might provoke more than superficial engagement.

Bristol and the transatlantic slave trade diagram
Authors Own Photo

But I think that’s enough of my whinging about that particular museum. To Bristol. It’s notable in that it’s both a smaller museum and exhibition but as soon as I walked in I was immediately more impressed. The huge diagram of the triangular trade that greets you as you walk into the gallery was both eye-catching and informative. It wasn’t just simple black lines between London, West Africa and the Caribbean, but it featured pictures, statistics, item lists and captions which demonstrated the nature of what was being traded, who funded it and enormity of it. It was off to a good start. It actually told more of what you perhaps didn’t necessarily want to know, the unpalatable truth about the subject. It dealt with that head on and I responded really well to that.

M Shed Exhibition
Authors own photo

In essence it is all shown in a small room, but it used all the tools I wanted to have seen in London.  It made good use of technology (most of which was actually working) and which allowed you to engage with the material beyond what was on display. The interactive screens also offered sound bites, which although limited, catered to a more multi-sensory experience. The only drawback was that you couldn’t take a seat and peruse through the material more comfortably.

Contemporary Link
Authors own photo

The cabinets of objects on display were also not static. They were fuller for starters, but also had clear object lists and as I previously said, quotes were placed on the glass which immediately drew your attention. There was also a map of the area showing buildings that were constructed from the profits made from the trade and the modern thread was also clearly present. In the centre of the room there was a large table with contemporary newspaper articles focusing on the legacy of the slave trade and also to one side, an interactive screen which invites visitors to vote about whether Bristol should commemorate the Slave Trade in some way. The effort to make it relevant and contemporary was much obvious here and also more successful. You were being invited for your opinion and it successfully engaged me.

The only slight odd thing about it was that slightly apart from the main exhibit you had continued display on the slave trade but it was tied into a thematic display on activism in Bristol, so the information on resistance and role of women in abolition movement was a little more difficult to find. It was effective having it encompassed in that thematic display but did feel a little separate from the main exhibition. 

I have to admit it was also helpful to have a guide who knew so much more than the exhibition divulged because it was quite limited. But I didn’t tire of this exhibit like I had done in London, despite its smaller size. I was quite happy reading the information and navigating my own way around, because there was so much to engage with in so many different ways.

We couldn’t really have picked two more contrasting places. I was disappointed by one, while the other exceeded all expectations. It just goes to show that actually the scale of a museum doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality of visitor experience, for in this case I would say the M-Shed outshone the Museum of London and that is something I didn’t expected I’d be saying.

“...In hearts at peace, under an English heaven”: Cowleaze Woods and its secret tragedy

Elle:

 

I based the name of my blog on the childhood game ‘I-spy’ because I really believe if you are tuned in to the world around you, all you have to do is look and you will find something that has historical significance or a tale of the past to tell. This belief has certainly held true and last weekend provided a great example, for we stumbled (in my case literally) upon a memorial in a place I never would have imagined to find one. 

I spent the weekend with friends in Oxford and we decided to head for a country walk in an area of woodland known as Cowleaze Wood, famous for its annual blanketing of bluebells. As we strolled along, Katy - Oxfordshire resident and our ‘guide’ to the local area - recalled how in the very woodland we were walking there was a memorial to the crew of a Halifax bomber LW579 that crashed in the wood when returning from a bombing attack on Nuremburg during the Second World War. I was extremely surprised by this revelation not least because shortly after this recollection she proceeded to point out the very place and the memorial that has been erected in memory of the 7 crew members who died.

The tragic event is marked by an understated memorial stone and small information panel, with additional information having been attached to a nearby tree - I’m guessing by a local history enthusiast or perhaps relative of one of the casualties. The information panel reads as follows:

‘On 31^st March 1944 the Halifax bomber LW 579 crashed here, killing all seven members of the crew. Their names are inscribed on the stone. They had been on a bombing raid on Nuremburg in East Germany, one of the 1000 planes that took part in the raid.

Contrary to the weather forecast there was brilliant moonlight that night and the planes were attacked by German fighter planes and anti-aircraft guns. Tragically, having survived thousands of miles flown across Europe, they crashed here when they were so nearly home.’

As I sat at work on Friday, watching the commemorative ceremony at the cenotaph and honoured the two minutes silence in remembrance of V.E. Day, I couldn’t help but think about these men. Seven men whose individual contributions and deaths are included in the total figure of military and civilian victims of the Second World War (c.450,000 in Britain). It is all too easy to forget the individual sacrifice in favour of the national one but this memorial made me stop and think about each person as an individual, something I, and I’m sure many of us don’t do often enough beyond perhaps, our own families.

It was quite an odd experience being stood in that woodland. In a way it felt quite haunting, walking upon the very ground which had witnessed this catastrophe. It was the middle of nowhere and I was left wondering, how far was the nearest hospital? Would help have come in time to have given the crew at least some hope? Was it immediate or did some time pass before the site was discovered? They were all rather morbid questions that began running through my mind and questions that I’ve never really found myself considering before. With the legacy of the Blitz for example, you don’t tend to see sites where the destruction is still evident and so aren’t really provoked to ask these sorts of questions. The 70+ years since have paved the way for redevelopment and rebuilding and there are very few ‘battlefields’ on UK shores. The only places I can think of that really evoke similar feelings for me here in the UK, are military cemeteries such as Brookwood; sites which bring the enormity of the sacrifice and cost of war home in a really powerful way.

The memorial in Cowleaze wood was in a place that you would least expect to find one, unless you are unfamiliar with the event of course. I suppose, rather naively, I’d never really considered before that sites like this exist in Britain and I think perhaps that’s what I found so poignant about the site. That, and also the fact that it hasn’t been forgotten and that the crew are still remembered – the wreaths and crosses by the memorial providing striking evidence of that.

Finding this memorial prompted me to again look beyond what I know of World War Two and to consider another angle of the conflict; the military casualties lost on home soil. It was rather overwhelming to think that in this small area of Oxfordshire woodland, these men are still remembered for the sacrifice they made in defending our country, in such an intimate and understated way.

Katy: http://publichistorymusings.blogspot.co.uk/

As I have said in other blog posts, history tends to jump out at you when you least expect it. Despite walking in Cowleaze Woods from a young age, it was only a year and a half ago that my family told me about the memorial to the men who tragically died while returning home from their mission. I had drafted a blog post immediately after this discovery but deadlines and Christmas festivities meant I postponed its release. I am grateful I did as it has led to this collaboration of views and insights (plus double the exposure!)

I am unsure as to how many people local or otherwise know of the memorial; it certainly is off the beaten track for dog walkers and nature lovers. As a ‘local’, the memorial reminds me that the Second World War did not just happen abroad or in the cities; my place of picnics and den building is a public site of commemoration dedicated to those who tragically died on their way home. 
At the memorial itself, there is an information sheet pinned to a tree detailing the events of the night. I have summarised what it says here:

The MH-V crew had already survived nineteen missions in which 529 heavy-duty bombers had been lost. For this mission, Sergeant Kelly replaced Flying Officer K King, who usually flew with the crew, as King had come down with a case of shingles. This would prove a blessing in disguise as it spared him from the fate of his comrades. The crew were returning from their mission and were aiming to reach RAF Benson for an emergency landing, suggesting it may have been damaged. Either the aircraft succumbed to the damage sustained or the pilot was unaware of the height of the hill, resulting in a collision with the trees and the craft’s explosion on impact at 5:20 am on 31^st March 1944.

Information about the crew added to a tree

Without this additional information present at the site, the details of the crash would remain unknown. Despite being graphic, this information helps us to imagine the destruction, which occurred in the peaceful woods. More importantly, it allows us to feel connected to the men who died rather than simply seeing a stone monument for those long gone. 

As Elle has said, it is easy to focus on the national struggle rather than considering an individual’s experience. While watching the BBC’s Remembering Victory, I was struck by Bruce Forsyth’s story of the distinct lack of closure experienced by his family due to the label ‘missing’ assigned to his brother in the RAF. It has made me think of those families who survived; having to adjust to the spare chair at the dinner table, knowing that no more treasured letters would arrive. While we look back and celebrate VE Day, let’s take a moment to reflect how close to home tragedy struck and how fortunate we are to live in a time of relative peace in this country.

Blanket of Bluebells