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 !

Hemel Hempstead Water Gardens - FOLAR site visit [no recording]

May 18, 2019

FOLAR led by Oliver Rock and Katharina Erne, HTA Design LLP landscape architects, on a guided walk around the newly restored Water Gardens in Hemel Hempstead. The Water Gardens (1957-9) by Geoffrey Jellicoe, and planting by Susan Jellicoe, were conceived of as an integral part of the New Town masterplan and formed the principal civic space serving the town centre. The gardens represent an important period in landscape design and in Jellicoe’s own work, when philosophical, cultural and social aspirations were realised through an integrated approach to town and landscape planning. the Water Gardens were listed in 2010 Grade II when they were under threat.

Oliver and Katharina will talk us through their research and the restoration project of both Water Gardens and Flower Gardens, which combined Geoffrey and Susan Jellicoe’s vision and masterplan with new, contemporary landscape design and facilities.

top left and top right flower gardens n summer photos: HTA

all other photos by AD on grey day, 18 May 2019.

Annabel Downs19 February 2025