20C Women in Landscape Design
Although perhaps uniquely the profession of landscape architecture has enjoyed an equal balance of male and female members, the lives, work and records of women members, however, has been less equally represented. FOLAR's ongoing talk series, some, like this one, with the Gardens Trust, has endeavoured to correct this imbalance. This particular group of six - Susan Jellicoe, Sheila Haywood, Brenda Colvin, Mary Mitchell, Marjory Allen and Marian Thompson - comprise some of the earliest pioneers in the profession who contributed to the expertise, development and awareness of the landscape profession in many different ways. It also includes two women from later generations, invariably inspired by the work of earlier designers, and their contemporaries, and who went on to lay down their own paths. We will never run out of valuable candidates for this ongoing series of talks.
The speakers we invited to share their knowledge about these remarkable women - Sally Ingram, Paula Laycock, Hal Moggridge, Joy Burgess, Wendy Titman and Bruce Thompson - have each known, worked with or researched into one of these six women.
1. Picturing a new world: the photographs of Susan Jellicoe
Susan Pares Jellicoe (1907-1986) joined the office of Jellicoe, Page and Wilson as a secretary in 1936 and went on to become a highly regarded honorary member of the Institute of Landscape Architects, collaborating with Geoffrey Jellicoe in all aspects of his work. What is particularly enjoyable about this talk by Sally Ingram is that she shows how very quickly Susan forms friendships and collaborations with a number of the other contemporary women profiled in this series. When the International Federation of Landscape Architects was formed after the war, Susan Jellicoe’s skills as a linguist, and her wartime experiences, were instrumental in promoting international understanding between nations. The work of Geoffrey Jellicoe has overshadowed Susan’s contribution to the study of twentieth century landscape design, and yet she was an accomplished plantswoman, writer, editor, and a skilled self-taught photographer. Drawing on Susan Jellicoe’s collection of thousands of small black and white photographs, taken during the 1950s and 60s and pasted on sheets of brown paper, this talk considers her extensive journey with a camera, capturing the post war landscape. Sylvia Crowe commented of the time ‘we all thought we could make a new world’ and this unique archive creates a visual narrative of the mid twentieth century, filtered through the preoccupations of a distinctly modern eye.
After a career in education, Sally Ingram completed an MA in Garden History at Birkbeck University, and has continued to research aspects of garden history for a number of projects. Her particular interest is in the twentieth century landscape and her MA dissertation considered the design of memorial parks and gardens in the post war era. She studied the work of Geoffrey Jellicoe when investigating his design for the roof garden at Harvey’s department store in Guildford and discovered Susan Jellicoe’s photograph albums, in the archive at the Landscape Institute. She has continued to explore this fascinating collection of over 6,000 images - now at The MERL - and its significance in the history of the post war urban landscape. Sally is a member of Sussex Gardens Trust (SGT), and edited their most recent publication, Gertrude Jekyll in Sussex, a collection of research studies examining Jekyll’s commissions in the county. She researches and writes articles for the SGT Journal, and publishes a monthly newsletter on their website.
MORE INFORMATION
Susan Jellicoe Photographic collection at The MERL
Susan Jellicoe authored/co-authored books at The MERL
The Landscape Institute collection at The MERL
More information about FOLAR and joining
Speaker: Sally Ingram
8 January 2025 online
2. Brenda Colvin CBE PPILA
This talk explores the life and works of Brenda Colvin (1897-1981), beginning with her childhood in India and her early garden design practice (1922–39), an activity she continued throughout her career. As a thoughtful theorist of landscape, the talk is interspersed with brief quotations from her writings. By 1951 she was elected President of the Institute of Landscape Architects of which she was one of the founder members, becoming the first woman to lead a British design or environmental profession.
From the late 1940s, Brenda shared an office and staff with fellow landscape architect Sylvia Crowe, although they maintained separate practices. The talk illustrates how they, alongside other colleagues, helped broaden the scope of the landscape profession in the latter half of the twentieth century. Independent in both thought and practice, Brenda worked on a range of government-sponsored projects, including major schemes for the Central Electricity Generating Board, a Water Authority, a military town, and a new university. Committed to continuity, she established the foundations for the perpetuation of her practice and its ideas.
HAL MOGGRIDGE was introduced to Brenda Colvin by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, in whose office he had worked after qualifying as an architect. He then became a landscape architect, and in 1969 entered into partnership with Brenda who had retired her practice to the Cotswolds. They worked together harmoniously, and their landscape architectural practice, Colvin & Moggridge, continued after Brenda’s death in 1981 with Chris Carter joining as partner; and still thrives, now under new directors. Between 1969 and 2005 Colvin & Moggridge handled 1,430 commissions, varying between large long-term rural industrial landscapes, reservoirs, cement works, quarries, a waste ash hill, and new parks and gardens including consultancy to the Inner London Royal Parks and creation of the new National Botanic Garden of Wales.
Hal Moggridge was elected president of the Landscape Institute in 1979. He has represented the Institute on the International Federation of Landscape Architects, was a commissioner of the Royal Fine Art Commission, served on the National Trust’s Architectural Panel, and on ICOMOS Cultural Landscapes Committees. He has explained the practice’s approach in an illustrated book: Slow Growth – on the art of landscape architecture. He has been awarded the OBE in 1986, the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour in 1999 and the Landscape Institute Medal.
MORE INFORMATION
Brenda Colvin collection is at The MERL
A hand list of the main Brenda Colvin collection
Trish Gibson biography- 'Brenda Colvin a Career in Landscape' (2011)
Celebration of Hal Moggridge's career in Landscape Architecture
Trish Gibson's talk
More information about FOLAR and joining
Speaker: Hal Moggridge
15 January 2025
3. Sheila Haywood - Cambridge
Sheila Haywood (1911-1993) studied at the Architectural Association in London from 1929-1934 during a period of intense student activism and change in the architectural profession. She did not become as well-known as some of her contemporaries. However, she played a significant role in the development of the profession of landscape architecture, as is reflected in her achievements. But it was her role as Assistant to Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe from 1939-1949 that was pivotal to her career, and which saw her interest transferring from buildings to the setting of the buildings themselves. While her work in the extractive industries would be a mainstay of her career, she also ventured into other areas, including as Landscape Consultant for Bracknell New Town (1950-1974). This talk focuses on Haywood’s work in Cambridge, first on the New Addenbrooke’s Hospital Site (1958-1962), then on the landscape of Churchill College (1959-1974), and finally as Landscape Consultant for Wolfson College, Cambridge (1974-1980).
PAULA LAYCOCK is a By-Fellow of Churchill College where she has worked for the past 36 years, for the main part as College Registrar, and in more recent years, in the Churchill Archives Centre where she carries out oral history interviews - https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/fellows/paula-laycock-2/. However, it was in the College’s own archives that Paula first came across Haywood’s 1959 landscape drawings for the College. Her interest in Haywood’s work and subsequent research resulted in the publication of a guide to the College’s grounds and gardens (2019) - https://shop.chu.cam.ac.uk/products/churchill-college-garden-guide, and then to a detailed exploration of their development from 1959 to the present day, now recorded in her book Portrait of a Landscape (2022) - https://shop.chu.cam.ac.uk/products/portrait-of-a-landscape. While Paula also produced an online biography of Sheila Haywood in 2016 - https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Biography_of_Sheila_Haywood.pdf, she has recently completed work on a detailed biography entitled Sheila Haywood: A Life in Landscape, with a view to publication in 2026.
MORE INFORMATION
Contact The MERL for additional information on and by Sheila Haywood in the Institute Journals, membership files etc. or telephone +44 (0) 118 378 8660
The Landscape Institute collection at MERL
More information about FOLAR and joining
Speaker: Paula Laycock
22 January 2025 online
4. Mary Mitchell - life and landscapes
Mary Mitchell (1923–1988) has been in the shadows of the history of our profession - even though she remains one of only four women landscape architects with an ODNB entry. Trying to find to find sufficient research material to build up a picture of Mary Mitchell's life and works has proved challenging, but from incomplete threads, surviving examples of work, and still on the look-out for those who knew her directly, or indirectly,
Joy Burgess presents a fuller picture of Mary Mitchell; how she became a landscape architect, her most important period of work with Birmingham City Architects Dept creating landscapes of play, and more. Via the work with the Land Army, and subsequent horticultural work and study at RHS Wisley and East of Scotland College of Agriculture she discovered landscape architecture. She gained a diploma in landscape design at UCL and went to work briefly with Richard Sudell before joining Ann Sutton (Swanley trained) in South Africa.
On her return to the UK she worked at Stevenage New Town, and then as a qualified landscape architect she set up the first landscape department within Birmingham City Architects Department and where AG Sheppard Fidler as the city architect had identified the need for the role of a landscape designer. Play and playable sculpture (working with John Bridgeman) became an early focus for Mitchell in association with the city's housebuilding programme. Also from the outset, it is clear that Mary Mitchell is interested in the work and ideas on play by Marjory Allen.
JOY BURGESS is a lecturer in landscape studies at the University of Liverpool where she is currently carrying out her PhD in collaboration with Historic England. Her PhD looks to tell the histories of female landscape architects in post-war Britain. Joy also works on the editorial team for the Women’s History Network Journal and has recently been a research assistant alongside Professor Luca Csepely-Knorr on the AHRC projects - IFLA 75: Uncovering hidden histories in Landscape Architecture and Women of the Welfare Landscape
MORE INFORMATION
Contact The MERL for additional information on and by Mary Mitchell in the Institute Journals, membership files etc. or telephone +44 (0) 118 378 8660
The Landscape Institute collection at MERL
More information about FOLAR and joining
Speaker: Joy Burgess
29 January 2025
5. Lady Marjory Allen of Hurtwood (1897-1976)
From ILA to diy, how a founder member of the Institute of Landscape Architects came to legitimise mess for the sake of risk.
Marjory Allen wrought change through everything she did. Known, by some, for the Selfridges Roof Garden in London – a relatively new concept in garden design in the 1920’s – it was the impetus for the garden which matters most. This beautiful place wasn’t created for wealthy customers but for shop girls who Marjory believed needed, nay deserved, to breath fresh(er) air and rise above the world. Marjory created gardens and landscapes for famous and wealthy people but she was also a pioneer of spaces for children, not for making beautiful environments for them but for their right to have and make their own places. These Adventure Playgrounds were once described as ‘children’s heaven and adults hell’. It was not how they looked but what they signified and enabled that mattered, essentially risk. Exploring the dichotomy that was Lady Marjory Allen of Hurtwood provides a fascinating insight into the life of a truly remarkable woman.
Through her design and development consultancy, Wendy Titman has been involved in the creation of environments for children and young people in schools, nurseries and children’s centres in the UK. Her research into the semiotics of children’s environments, published as ‘Special Places, Special People – the hidden curriculum of school grounds’ (1992) led to a period of international work. Prior to this, Wendy was involved with provision for children outside school including the development of adventure playgrounds during which time she had the pleasure of knowing Marjory Allen.
MORE INFORMATION
University of Warwick, Papers of Marjory Allen, Lady Allen of Hurtwood, landscape architect, campaigner for pre-school education and promoter of child welfare, [1914]-1976
Wellcome Collection, Lady Allen of Hurtwood papers, 1941-1968 Part of: Dally, Ann Gwendolen, and Dally, Peter John
Contact The MERL for additional information on and by Lady Marjory Allenl in the Institute Journals, membership files etc. or telephone +44 (0) 118 378 8660
The Landscape Institute collection at MERL
More information about FOLAR and joining
Speaker: Wendy Titman
5 February 2025
6. Marian Thompson
The work of Marian Thompson (Grierson) 1936-1999, was driven by a love of plants and nature. She is fondly remembered not only for her professional achievements but also for her great sense of humour, infectious smile, enthusiasm, and ability to teach and inspire others. There was never a dull moment in her company. She was born in Budapest to a Hungarian father and an English mother (both sculptors) who moved to England at the outset of World War II. Gardening was an integral part of her early family life providing food for the table and making beautiful settings for the odd sculpture. With an aptitude for the sciences and interest in plants, she studied Horticulture and later Landscape Architecture - wanting to use her knowledge of plants to create better places. Marian began her career at Timothy Cochrane Associates before undertaking many commissions ranging from landscape restoration, new gardens, planting for public spaces to habitat creation. Notably, she was commissioned by Stanley Seeger to work on his Sutton Place estate and gardens of The Deanery. For many years she was also a part time lecturer at Thames Polytechnic (now Greenwich University). In retirement, she combined her passion for plants and watercolour painting, joining a plant-hunting group at Jardin Botanica in Brazil, where she explored and painted the coastal rainforest.
Bruce Thompson was exposed to his mother’s interest from an early age, he studied Landscape Architecture and worked for Land Use Consultants. With more of an interest in creating built places, he spent two years working in California, where he shifted towards property development. He now heads Development and Regeneration at Dorrington PLC. Mike Westley studied landscape architecture at the University of Greenwich where Marian Thompson taught planting design; he is a chartered landscape architect, designer & senior university academic with 30 years practice experience in the U.K, Europe, U.S.A & Australia.
MORE INFORMATION
Marian Thompson archive at The MERL
The Landscape Institute collection at MERL
More information about FOLAR and joining
Speakers Bruce Thompson and Mike Westley
30 April 2025