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This book invites the reader to take a leisurely stroll through London's Crystal Palace's parks and grounds of the famous and not so famous. Not a random selection, though, but ones linked by the ancestral history of one Edward Milner who founded what was to become the landscape gardening company of choice for prominent land gentry. Using details on ancestral heritage and family dealings spanning four generations, and including a large amount of background information regarding a long list of distinguished clientèle, the author presents a detailed vision of the gardens and parks which have celebrated the creative handiwork of Milner and his partners. The landscape works are described in great deal and illustrated in some fifty original plans and photographs, many taken by the author during his research. For the enthusiast and gardening professional, there are indexed references, including a list of all the gardens and parks entrusted to the firm, complete with client names and dates.
Born in 1819, the son of a gardener at Chatsworth, Edward Milner was apprenticed to Joseph Paxton who sent him to London to report on various horticultural establishments and to Paris to study. Milner then became Paxton’s assistant and superintendent for establishing the gardens of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. After further work with Paxton, in 1858 Milner formed his own firm which designed and executed numerous landscape projects in Britain and abroad. In 1870 Milner’s son, Henry, joined his father to work for increasingly prestigious clients including royalty. Henry later condensed their combined experiences into a controversial book, and laid out Wembley park. On Henry’s death the firm’s principal was his son-in-law Edward White, who became a director of the first Chelsea Flower Show in 1913. The fourth generation evolved the firm into corporate work and when it closed in 1995 it was the oldest landscape gardening practice in the country.
