landscape matters volume 5 - Flipbook - Page 13
had felt greatly inhibited by Jock Shepherd who in 1925 produced
superb axonometric drawings of buildings and gardens for their
book Italian Gardens of the Renaissance. It was only when
Jellicoe ‘retired’ from his practice in 1973 and worked solo from
home, he had to pick up his own drawing pen.That gestation
period was so worth the wait.
Although his plan chest was full of mostly presentation drawings, there were no other documents - no job files, or correspondence, so what he gave was a fraction of what is needed to piece
together the story behind these projects.My research on Jellicoe’s
John F Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede has revealed how many
other people were involved in making this project happen and
how more complicated and extraordinary the story really is than
the accounts Jellicoe published.
At its heyday in the 1990s, the Landscape Institute’s library and
the nascent archive were regarded by members as one of its
most valued services.They were being used by landscape
practices involved in heritage lottery bids and conservation
projects, also by architects, developers, authors, researchers for
Anthony Minghella’s film Breaking and Entering, English Heritage officers seeking detailed information to recommend new
blue plaques, or landscaped sites to be added to the register
of Parks and Gardens, students, and by academics, solicitors,
journalists and the public. Where records survive, the future of
places can sometimes be more secure, certainly the designer’s
intentions would have a better prospect of being understood.
When the LI library and archive was closed (2008) to save money
and eventually gifted toThe MERL (2013), members and other
users found alternative ways of acquiring the information they
needed, or did without.
symposium, talks and other initiatives we are promoting its use
in professional work and raising awareness of the history of the
LI and its people and activities.
As the LI trustees promised to the membership, the archive is
being financially supported by the LI. This support however is
dwindling, now reduced to one third the original sum and not
enough to fund an archivist one day a week for a year. This is not
sustainable or in my opinion reasonable.
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1. Ferrybridge C Draft sketch elevation by Harold White (?) showing
scale of cooling towers and turbine
hall in the proposed landscape plan
2. Ferrybridge ‘C’ Power Station
Preliminary Landscape Proposals
(W Yorkshire) by Frank Marshall for
Milner White and Son 1962 Milner
White and Son Collection
Happily the LI archive at The MERL has continued to expand
and develop with new collections. None of the new acquisitions
however is born digital. Digital material clearly poses major
issues for museums and archives but this will need to be
addressed and resolved soon and some risks accepted. FOLAR
is particularly excited that a growing number of PhD candidates
are focusing their research on material in the LI archive and also
that several multidisciplinary research grants and bids are also
based on the archive. One of FOLAR’s ambitions is to re-engage
the LI members with the archive, and through our annual
Image: LI/The MERL
It must have been inconceivable when Frank Marshall was working as part of Milner White and Sons, trying to plan where tree
screening would be most effective in the site surrounding
Ferrybridge Power Station, for him to think that students and
academics years ahead would cherish his drawings at The
MERL, look for clues to learn about his decision making, where
and why levels were altered, buildings located, and what
recreational facilities were provided for staff. However this and
other post-war sites are being used as learning tools for landscape and architectural students.They are part of a successful
grant application that embraces also historians, geographers
and artists and poets. Oral histories, discussions with senior
practitioners who have worked on similar projects, supporting
information from job files, journals, books and images, all these
resources are used to help tell the story of a project. And this
also becomes a crucial part of the history and the role of the
landscape profession shaping the landscape.
We may not need new coal fired power stations, but there will
be soon a demand for new reservoirs, there is already a need for
better understanding of forestry and large scale tree planting,
landscape to new housing, public parks, and the wider environmental issues of climate change. Information and examples of
all these topics are held at The MERL, to be investigated,
analysed and inspired by.
Landscape Institute Collections at The MERL
https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/landscape-institute/
Digitised drawings from LI collections at MERL via the Virtual
Reading Room: https://collections.reading.ac.uk/visit-us/
using-collections/virtual-reading-room/
FOLAR www.folar.uk/ Contact: info@folar.uk
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