From the bijou corners of Corpus Christi to the wide open lawns of Trinity, Oxford's gardens are full of surprises and hidden corners - not least the fellows' or masters' gardens, which are usually kept resolutely private. Take a tour of the stunning gardens of this prestigious British institution without leaving your armchair with this elegant, authoritative analysis full of glorious photographs which reveal their full interest and charm. The gardens of Oxford's thirty or so colleges are surprisingly varied in style, age and size, ranging from the ancient mound in the middle of New College to the fine modernist design which is St Catherine's. The eighteenth-century landscape school is represented in the magnificent acreage of Worcester, while the twentieth-century vogue for rock gardening is reflected at St John's. Founded in 1621, the university's Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Britain, holds one of the most diverse plant collections in the world, and has been a source of inspiration for writers from Lewis Carroll to Philip Pullman.
Tim Richardson is a writer who specializes in garden and landscape design and history. He has been gardens editor at Country Life, and landscape editor at Wallpaper* magazine, and was founding editor of both the award-winning gardens magazine New Eden and Country Life Gardens. He contributes to the Daily Telegraph, House and Garden, Gardens Illustrated and Country Life. He is the author of Phaidon's The Garden Book, Vanguard Landscapes Gardens of Martha Schwartz, English Gardens of the 20th Century and Arcadian Friends: the Makers of the English Landscape Garden. He is also the author of The New English Garden (Frances Lincoln).
Andrew Lawson is widely regarded as England's leading garden photographer. He has provided the photographs for many books, including Good Planting by Rosemary Verey, Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening, Designing Gardens by Arabella Lennox Boyd, Little Sparta (9780711220850) by Jessie Sheeler, The Garden at Highgrove by HRH Prince of Wales, and The English Garden by Ursula Buchan and The New English Garden also by Tim Richardson. He holds the Royal Horticultural Society's Gold Medal for Photography and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Garden Writer's Guild. His garden in Oxfordshire is open under the National Gardens Scheme.
