Why not volunteer?

We need volunteers who are interested in gardens, horticulture, social and cultural history, local history or archaeology to get involved and help support our work .

The Trust would like to enrol more volunteers who are interested in researching gardens and if you would like to join our enthusiastic team helping to understand more about our garden heritage, please contact us .

Volunteers at Marle Place

Research

The reports for each council-wide project, and for individual commissions, can be accessed here.

Research is a vital starting point in protecting historic parks and gardens, and forms a very important part of the Trust's activities.

A team of trained volunteers undertake council-wide research projects as well as individual commissions. Typically, our volunteers research the history and development of a park or garden up to the present day, and assess its significance. The research forms the basis of a fully-referenced, authoritative report.

These reports can be used in several different ways, for example:

  • As a material consideration by planning officers when deciding planning applications
  • To recommend to councils that a park or garden should be included on the local list of heritage assets
  • To support applications for funding towards the cost of restoration projects
  • To provide support, and perhaps some security, for owners of historic sites
  • Source material for students and other researchers

Building on a register of historic parks and gardens in Kent produced in the 1990s (The Kent Gardens Compendium), volunteers have now looked at parks and gardens in the areas covered by Medway Council, Sevenoaks District Council and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council. Our latest project is with Dover District Council. We are grateful to all councils with whom we have worked for their support.

We are also grateful to Kent County Council, English Heritage (now Historic England), High Weald AONB Unit and our editors, Virginia Hinze and Harriet Jordan.

(Please note that some of the images for the Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks projects are available separately. For the Tunbridge Wells project, these images can be found on the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council website. For the Sevenoaks project, the images are available on CDs which are held at Sevenoaks library.)