Gardening Greats with the Reckless Gardener

Thomas Mawson (left) was one of the great landscape architects of his period. Born into a working class family, the son of a cotton warper, he left school at 12 to earn a living and entered the building trade. When his father died Thomas, who had already begun to develop an interest in horticulture, left his roots in Lancashire and went to London.

Here he was able to secure work with a number of landscape gardeners and nurseries, eventually returning to the Lake District in 1884. He set up his own business in Windermere with two brothers and thus began the work of the man often described as ‘the leading landscape architect of the Edwardian
era.’

The Lakes had become popular with wealthy merchants and gentry who established fine country houses and estates both as holiday retreats and retirement homes and Mawson actively set about seeking commissions. One of his first were the gardens at Graythwaite Hall, Sawrey which he began in 1889.

In much the same way that the partnership between Lutyens and Jekyll developed, Mawson had a partnership with the architect/designer Dan Gibson. Although short lived, their partnership was productive – the gardens at Brockhole, Windermere, being an example.

Mawson worked mainly in the north and Scotland during those early years but as his talent and reputation spread he found himself winning competitions for a number of public parks (Burslem and Hanley (Hanley plan pictured right) for example). His interest in town planning and public parks led to his being awarded the position of president of the Town and Planning Institute in 1923 followed by his appointment as the first president of the newly formed Institute of Landscape Architects in 1929.

He also started to work abroad and is notable for the Peace Palace Gardens in The Hague (1908). Mawson liked a challenge and his project at Rivington (Nr Bolton) for the then Mr W H Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) was perhaps one of the most stimulating. Here he formed a municipal park from 400 acres of moorland and created, on the steep hillsides, terraces of absolute delight. Despite its later neglect, Rivington is still one of the most exciting and enchanting places to visit.

In 1900 he wrote 'The Art and Craft of Garden Making' which not only promoted his views on good garden design but also had the effect of generating more work for his business enabling him to spread his genius much farther afield.

It was thus Mawson who named the Arts and Crafts Style of garden design . He used photographs to illustrate his book which at that time was an original idea which was copied by other publishers.

As with Jekyll many of Mawson's gardens have been destroyed but several excellent examples remain, including Graythwaite, The Hill, (Hampstead), Brockhole and Dryffryn Gardens in South Wales.

For many years Thomas Mawson was overlooked among the gardening greats.He died in 1933 and Thomas H Mawson & Sons closed in the early 1980s. However, recently his work has become appreciated once again. His development of the garden with its structural and formal terracing near the house leading onto an informal garden of natural landscape is typified in Kearnsey Abbey, near Dover. (Pictured above left.)