| Description | This series consists of Dorothy Elmhirst's personal papers relating to the Dartington Hall Gardens. Within Box 1 there is correspondence with landscape designers, professional gardeners and horticulturists, such as L S Fortescue of The Garden House, Buckland Monachorum; Michael Haworth-Booth; Edward Hyams; Dartington Hall Gardens superintendents; Lanning Roper; Constance Spry; and H Avray Tipping. A separate folder devoted to landscape designer Beatrix Farrand includes correspondence and notes on planting schemes and garden design and an article and obituary for her by Dorothy Elmhirst. Included also is a copy of the 'Eighth Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, Beatrix Jones Farrand, Dartington Hall' by Laurence J Fricker (1982), and correspondence with Beatrix's husband, Max Farrand. A further separate folder relating to landscape designer, Percy Cane, contains the Elmhirsts' and the Garden department's correspondence, notes and minutes, which document consultation with Cane and his work on parts of the immediate surrounds of the Hall and its gardens, from 1945 until shortly before Cane's death in the early 1970s. Planting schemes for other areas at Dartington are also included. A notebook that belonged to Leonard Elmhirst documents Cane's visits in 1970 and 1971. Articles from the 1970s re a biography, 'Percy Cane: Garden Designer', by Ronald Webber are also included. An article 'Davidia involucrata' by Dorothy Elmhirst and her talks to Robin Tanner's teachers courses, including 'How the Garden at Dartington Hall was re-made', are included in this box. There is a reference to the idea for a scheme for agricultural and horticultural training. Correspondence relates to the Dartington Cottage Garden Show Society, the September gardening courses, and to visits by the Garden Club of America. Other material relates to the creation of the first Hall Gardens pamphlet. Papers relate to the siting of 'Flora' (dht1006) the garden statue presented to Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst on Foundation Day, 1967. Box 2 contains nurserymen's invoices and lists of plants purchased. Box 3 contains correspondence and details of costs between 1945 and 1952 relating to the replenishment and upkeep of the Hall Gardens under the 'Cane Plan', which was funded by the Elmgrant Trust. Notebooks containing Dorothy Elmhirst's ideas and designs for plantings in areas of the Hall Gardens are held in Boxes 4 and 5. Relevant press articles are also included in boxes 3, 4 and 5. Boxes 6 and 7 contain Dorothy Elmhirst's garden notebooks or diaries, which she kept from 1940 until her death in 1968. |