Roy Strong

Leading writer, historian and broadcaster Sir Roy Strong tells of the remodelling of his own Laskett garden in Herefordshire, one of the most important English gardens of the last century. Strong describes the garden, the largest laid out in Britain since the war, as ‘the portrait of a marriage . . . a mnemonic landscape’. He and his late wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman, created the garden over the 30 years of their marriage. When Julia died in 2003, the garden had become overgrown. So began a great remodelling, with trees and hedges chopped down and vistas opened up to give the garden a ‘new energy and excitement’. The changes were all captured in a series of ‘before and after’ shots by renowned garden photographer Clive Boursnell.

Strong is a former director of the National Portrait Gallery and of the Victoria and Albert Museum. His many publications include The Renaissance Garden in England, The Artist and the Garden, and Self-Portrait as a Young Man.

Sponsored by the Savoy.