The Trust Garden Library

Education resource in: Conservation, Horticulture, Heritage, Design, Landscape, Wildlife.

Introduction

I have built a Garden Library for the use of the charity. This is additional to my main library in the house which now comprises several thousand items.

The library is for the benefit of our students, volunteers, clients from Wiltshire County Council Educational and Social Services, and local students.  It is also place of rest and shade in hot weather and for meals to be taken.

I have always loved books and started collecting them when I was a child, spending my pocket money in second hand bookshops and brica-brac shops in Stroud, inspired and guided by my Uncle Terry who engendered in me a love of learning and a passion for books and for history.

The Garden Library is also for the benefit of the students and volunteers of The Trust. The books are in the Summerhouse which affords a place of study, rest, calm, and shade. 

The space it occupies is also used for study, instruction, teaching in the various subjects and skills the Trust can offer.

 

Library Study Room

The Garden Library is located in the lage summer house on the other side of the pond and beach.  This is used as a reference place and tutorial base to help our students and volunteers. It is fully equipped with desk, lighting, chairs etc and is about14ft. x 10ft.

Purpose: The purpose of the collection is to provide specific reference tools for teaching and horticulture in general as well as wildlife audits and study. It also enables investigation for various projects and community activities. Another use of the library is to enhance understanding of the heritage and traditions of gardening, landscape, design, conservation etc. (this of course includes the work of the great gardeners, landscapers, designers, botanists  etc of the past).

The scientific and social aspects of horticulture is not ignored for there are sections on the social history of gardens and landscape. And also such matters as ecology, conservation, botany, ornithology,  soil science, aboriculture, etc.

In the area of culture and art there is a collection of books dealing with how artists, poets, and writers have responded to the landscape and the idyll of the garden and nature.

Access & Use: Acccess to the Garden Library and Study room is restricted to our Trustees,  Council of Advsers, Society of Friends, Volunteers, and Students. It is a reference library and no books are loaned out.

 

Library Sections

The GARDEN LIBRARY comprises related categories (all within the broad themes of gardening/landscape/nature/ heritage  etc). The library is always expanding and the categories range (which will increase over time) currently comprises the following:

1. Great gardeners.

2. Great gardens.

3. History of English landscape.

4. Landscape design.

5. English country houses & parks.

6. Garden wildlife.

7. Botany.

8. Propagation.

9. Greenhouse gardening.

10. Garden design & decor.

11. Architecture.

12. Trees & shrubs.      

13. Encyclopaedias.

14. Butterflies & moths.

15. Amphibians.

16. Birds.    

17. Insects & Bees.      

18. Water gardening/ponds.

19. Garden d.i.y. & crafts.

20. Wild plants/flowers.

21. Dartmoor.

22. County gardens.

23. Herbs.

24. Rural social history.

25. Wayfinding.

26. The English village.

27. Mammals.

28. County Landscapes.

29. Photography.

30. Astronomy.

31. British Wildlife.

32. British landscape painters.

33. Literature and the landscape

34. Art and the landscape

35. Archaeology & Landscape.

36. Rivers and Landscape.

37. Woods & Landscape

38. Town/urban Gardens.

39. Sacred Landscape.

40. Gardens & spirituality

41. Garden Lore/legends/myth

42. Ecology.

43. Environment.

43. Geology/soil/geography.

44. Guides to historical sites

45. Dictionaries European languages

46. Ancient/prehistoric hominids & the landscape

47. Folk traditions/customs

New sections and subjects will be added.   So far the garden faculty of The Library comprises a couple of thousand items. Even more books ate in the house. It is of course always growing. 

 

Conditions of Access

Conditions of Use: The Trust Library is not open to the public. Access is by prior written appointments for individual scholars only.

1. The library is free for students of Derry Hill & Studley villages, our own students, Trustees etc.  Others are asked to make a donation..

2. It is not a lending library but a reference library.

3. No eating or drinking in the library. Food & drink may be consumed on the patio or verandah.

4. No talking or music etc.

5. No photography.

6. No phones or bags can be taken into the library.

7. Study/access is by prior written permission.

 

Stephen Cox Garden Trust (registered charity #1174239)

"PURPOSE of the TRUST:  To offer charitable programmes and projects of education, horticulture, wildlife,  conservation and heritage, for the improvement of human well-being in general based upon the founder's garden, library, writings, teachings and  philosophy and by other means as the Trustees shall from time to time decide."

enquiries: stephencox.gardentrust@gmail.com