Past Talks

Almost from the outset FOLAR has - with generous permission from our speakers - recorded virtually all the talks we have held at symposia and online.There are currently over 130 recordings available under Past Talks and Specials.

The Past Talks section covers topics ranging from the Festival Pleasure Gardens at Battersea Park, Susan Jellicoe’s photographs, the Open Spaces Society, working on Byker in Newcastle with Ralph Erskine, to landscape designs that promote human health and well-being. There are a number of talks that focus on women landscape designers, from Fanny Wilkinson, Marjory Lady Allen of Hurtwood, Brenda Colvin, Sylvia Crowe in Bristol, to Elisabeth Beazley, Diana Armstrong Bell and other contemporary landscape architects in the can…

Our speakers include past presidents of the Landscape Institute - Brian Clouston, Hal Moggridge, Tim Gale; landscape academics - Ed Bennis, Jan Woudstra, Alan Powers, Luca Csepely-Knorr, Catharine Ward Thompson; historians - Elain Harwood, John Boughton, Katrina Navickas; practitioners – Annie Coombs; Neil Chapman, Jennette Emery-Wallis, Paul Rabbitts, Ian Baggott, young researchers – Joy Burgess, Sally Watson, Karen Fitzsimon, and many more.

The Specials section includes talks celebrating the life and works of two of the Landscape Institute’s significant practitioners – Bran Clouston and Hal Moggridge; and a series of twenty one talks on the C20 designed landscapes that were added to the Historic England register in 2021.

So how can anyone find anything in all these recordings? The quickest way is to use the search box – type in a strong and simple key word linked with your search, eg play, Jellicoe, Sweden, and hopefully you will find something that is useful for you…. let us know !

British Agricultural Landscapes: past, present & post-Brexit — FOLAR symposium

A series of six talks at the FOLAR symposium looks at changes in the agricultural landscape from post-war Britain to Brexit and beyond. This is potentially a pivotal and critical moment to determine the future of the countryside and improve the nation’s agricultural policies. What are the gains and the losses? How is change effected across such a varied landscape? The impact of decisions made now could well endure for 50-100 years, so what are the right decisions?

We hear the viewpoints of a former Countryside Commission CEO; a director of biodiversity, crops and agri-ecosystems from Reading University; a landscape architect and former CEO of the Lake District National Park; a landscape architect and expert in Landscape Character Assessment; a principal advisor on urban and peri-urban environments and green space for Natural England, and a director of policy for the National Farmers Union (NFU). This diverse group of speakers, chaired by the President of the Landscape Institute, offers an invaluable insight into the key issues of the day, the state of the nation’s agriculture and the natural environment, how we got there, and the future prospects.

Speakers: Adrian Phillips, Simon Mortimer, Paul Tiplady, Kate Ahern, Duncan MacKay, Adrian Clark; Chair Merrick Denton-Thompson
April 2018 at The MERL

Introduction by Merrick Denton-Thompson, President of the Landscape Institute

Farming and landscape - a super-rapid rather personal account across the course of my lifetime by Adrian Phillips

Options for future agri-environmental policy by Dr. Simon Mortimer

Landscape character assessment as a tool for valuing agricultural landscapes by Kate Ahern

The National Park: the role of agriculture by Paul Tiplady

After Brexit what future? Post Common Agricultural Policy by Dr Andrew Clark

Annabel Downs19 February 2025