The Thousand Year Old Garden

"A fascinating and intimate portrait of a garden over time ... Reading is like being given a rusty key to a beautiful secret garden." - Ben Dark, Author of The Grove

Explore the magical green world of Lambeth Palace Garden, a hidden jewel of London for more than 1,000 years. In this book, Head Gardener Nick Stewart Smith takes the reader on a series of rambles through the changing seasons, introducing some extraordinary trees and plants along the way. Revealing some of the untold stories of the ten-acre secret garden, this is a unique insight into a special place.

Nick explains how nature is at the heart of everything here, the gardening approach allowing the green world inside the high stone walls to be a haven for many kinds of wildlife, all flourishing right in the midst of one of the world's busiest cities.

Auteur

Nick Stewart Smith has been a gardener all of his working life. He has a degree from Warwick University and has previously trained and worked in Barcelona at the historic Ciutadella Park, and as National Trust Head Gardener at Overbecks, a stunning subtropical garden on the Devon coast. Returning home to London, at the beginning of 2016 he was asked to take charge of the old garden at Lambeth Palace, where he remained until summer 2022. He now works as a freelancer, living between Camberwell and Peckham.