Garden Archaeology: A Handbook

Before the 1980s, people wishing to recreate or reconstruct a historic garden, 'back to its former glory,' relied almost solely on documentary sources, paintings and literary references. For the last twenty years it has been recognised that these are not terribly reliable sources and people have turned to archaeological evidence to provide a more accurate picture of what went on beneath the soil. This handbook relates the historical background to the sub-discipline of Garden Archaeology before discussing the excavation techniques used to recover and record evidence of past garden designs and plants. Survey techniques, historical buildings analysis, geophysics, air photography and environmental sampling are some of the main procedures carried out, all of which are described here. This reappraisal of current practice and techniques is well written and clearly presented and includes a series of case studies of formal, informal, water, town and unusual gardens from across the UK.