72181 WISE WORDS AND COUNTRY WAYS: For


Gardeners by Ruth Binney A glorious celebration of time- honoured, traditional gardening recipes which she has gathered together the wisdom and sayings of generations of enthusiastic gardeners, ordinary people as well as such luminaries as Vita Sackville-


West and Robert Thomson. It combines good, old- fashioned advice with up-to-date info on everything from being aware of the seasons and wildlife in your garden to growing better fruit, vegetables, herbs and trees. 208 pages, illus. £9.99 NOW £4


71965 SHRUBS by Andrew McIndoe Shrubs are the basic building blocks of any garden, providing a huge palette of shapes, colours and textures. From purchasing to planting to choosing the right kind of soil, from use as hedges and screens to growing in pots and containers, and from choice of sites to planting for structure, here is all the advice you could possible need for lasting success in your own particular garden. 192 softback pages 21cm x 25cm in brilliant colour with author’s choice of 20 top performance shrubs. £14.99 NOW £4.50


72184 A GLOSSARY OF GARDEN HISTORY by Michael Synes


What are the differences between a belvedere, a gazebo, a pavilion and a summer house? How does one distinguish between an allée and an alley, and when does an allée become an avenue? What are gazon coupé, a milliarium and a crinkle-crankle wall? The book presents a range of unusual terms and is an alphabetical glossary of over 500 explanations. A final chapter outlines the work of leading British garden designers from John Evelyn to Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe. Beautiful colour photos throughout like the Turkish Tent in Buckinghamshire. 152 glossy pages in paperback. £9.99 NOW £3


72611 HISTORIC GARDENS OF DORSET by Timothy Mowl


Until around a century ago Dorset was still the semi- feudal society that Hardy knew and described, and its gardens reflected it. Delightful small manor houses lay hidden, tucked away in secluded valleys each within their own walled gardens and many could be found near winterbourne meadows. Some aimed higher, such as the Cecils’ lodge at Cranborne, where John Tradescant’s work is clearly visible in its innovative Jacobean enclosures, Lulworth’s Franco-Italian formal gardens and Melbury, with its Norman forest and Tudor deer park. In the late 20th century, historic gardens of the future, such as Chilcombe and Bettiscombe. Mowl investigates the secretive, aristocratic and remote gardens of Dorset. B/w photos and a 16-page colour plate section, over 30 magnificent gardens are thoroughly explored. 192pp softback.


£15.99 NOW £6


72622 OH GARDEN OF FRESH POSSIBILITIES! Notes from a Gloucester Garden by Kim Smith


Recommended for gardeners seeking both sensible guidance and design inspiration, this volume contains 22 chapters that illuminate every aspect of planning and planting. Eclectic in its approach, citing poetry and quotations from Eastern and Western sources, it challenges readers with an artist’s eye, while drawing from down-to-earth practical experience. It is as much about how to visualise a garden as about particular trees, shrubs, vines, perennials and annuals. The author is sensitive to the plants’ forms, hues and horticultural demands and has established a succession of blooms and a selection of plant materials that reduce the need for pesticides and herbicides. The author’s own garden brims with every species imaginable and some - including apricots - that a few people might consider unimaginable. Much more than another how-to book. 211 pages with exquisitely delicate watercolours by the author and three appendices. $35 NOW £6.50


72649 THE GARDENS OF


RUSSELL PAGE: A New Edition of a Classic Account


by Gabrielle van Zuylen and Marina Schinz Perhaps the greatest garden designer of the 20th century, Russell Page was originally trained as an artist and he carried over, to the


many vast garden projects that he undertook, an architectural sensibility and a keen eye for style. His gardening education began in the grand manner at Longleat in the 1930s and culminated in the United States in the 1980s with the 140-acre PepsiCo sculpture park in Purchase, New York. In the years between, he designed gardens all over England, the US and Continental Europe such august schemes as the Battersea Park Festival Gardens for the 1951 Festival of Britain, the gardens at La Mortella - on the volcanic island of Ischia - for Sir William and Lady Walton, and the gardens of the Frick Collection in New York City. 256 pages 25.5cm x 31cm filled with over 250 exquisite colour photos. £35 NOW £14


72750 YOUR HERB GARDEN MONTH-BY- MONTH


by Barbara Segall


If you long to create and maintain a garden of aromatic, culinary and decorative herbs, this book is easy to use month-by-month format, with seasonal tasks planned out for you, plus tips, checklists and plant profiles. For centuries herbs have been cultivated for their culinary, medicinal and aromatic qualities. Here are harvest herbs for cooking, drying and preserving, as well as instructions on how to make pot pourri and scented gifts. 144 softback pages 19.5cm x 26.5cm lavishly illustrated with delicate line drawings and soft watercolours, with additional plants and list of useful addresses. £12.99 NOW £4.50


the west.


www.YouTube.com - Type in bibliophilebooks to see our video book reviews 72652 HISTORIC GARDENS


OF ENGLAND: Oxfordshire by Timothy Mowl


Since the re-jigging of the country boundaries, Oxfordshire has become the new royal county. Oxford city used to be literally a stone’s throw from the Berkshire border, but now it stands centrally, with star-ranking gardens at Buscot, Buckland, Pusey and Faringdon wrapping it round on


This last has the most imaginative 20th century garden, with Robert Heber Percy’s swimming pool guarded by two giant stone wyverns and a Gothick tower on top of a Ziggurat. The county has at least three more five-star gardens. At Sandford Park there is a Regency double-faced Chinese Temple . Stylistically linked, but of the 1960s, is the Japanese Garden at New House, Shipton-under Wychwood. Little known and little visited is the most ambitious Victorian Garden in Britain - Friar Park, with its underground lakes, ice caves and enchanting fake Matterhorn. These are but a few of the gorgeous sites described in this tempting book. 192 paperback pages, colour and b/w with plans, map dated 1751, modern map and gazetteer. £17.99 NOW £5.50


72681 WILLIAM ROBINSON: The Wild


Gardener by Richard Bisgrove William Robinson is best known for his fervent endorsement of ‘wild gardening’ - including the naturalising of bulbs. His discovery of Alfred Parsons as the ideal artist to illustrate his ideas helped to foster a new era of the ‘plantsman’s picturesque’ and thus to launch the ideal of the English cottage garden, which is apparent in such gardens as Hidcote Manor and Sissinghurst, and has resonated around the world ever since. He began his horticultural career as a garden boy in Ireland and ended it as the owner of over 1,000 acres in Sussex! As a young man, he travelled throughout Britain, then to Paris, the Alps, North Africa and across North America. These experiences led to a constant stream of opinionated publications on subjects ranging from asparagus cultivation to cremation and from the advantages of wood fires to the evils of the bedding-out system. His hugely successful journals, and later his home at Gravetye Manor - now a hotel - provided a platform and focus for other great horticultural names such as Gertrude Jekyll, Frank Crisp, Ellen Willmott and E. A. Bowles. His views on a sustainable approach to life have important lessons for the 21st century. 256 pages 24cm x 29.5cm illustrated in colour and b/w. £30 NOW £14.50


72705 CAREFREE PLANTS: Hundreds of


Trouble-Free Winners for a Beautiful Garden by Daphne Ledward


This splendidly informative volume explains the basics - from choosing and using tools to putting in plants and keeping them disease-free. Here are bulbs, herbaceous perennials, flowers, foliage, even berries and bark that will bring colour all year round, as well as a great deal of inspiration, plus practical advice on lawns, ground cover, water gardens and containers. You will never look back. 352 softback pages 25.5cm by 25cm with more than 850 photos in dazzling colour, with plant directory and A-Z of more than 250 plant profiles. Published by the Reader’s Digest.


£14.99 NOW £5.75


72713 FOOD FROM YOUR GARDEN AND ALLOTMENT: All You Need to Know to Grow, Cook and Preserve Your Own Fruit and


Vegetables published by Reader’s Digest Nowadays, more and more gardeners are rediscovering the tradition of growing their own fruit and vegetables. In this complete A-Z grow-it, harvest-it, cook-it, store-it guide you will find all you need to know about more than 100 crops, from all the kitchen staples to more exotic ingredients such as artichokes and kohlrabi, together with expert advice on planning your plot, sowing, understanding and improving your soil, planting, pruning, training, propagating, taking cuttings and more. You will also find dozens of delicious recipe ideas for using your crops or preserving them as jams, jellies, chutneys, pickles and home-made wines, and all you need to know about freezing, drying and storing gluts of your produce to keep it at its very best. 320 softback pages 26.5cm x 21cm, colour illus. £14.99 NOW £5


72714 GORGEOUS GARDENING BOOSTERS: 1,001 Fast and Effective Ways to Improve


Your Garden published by Reader’s Digest ‘Discover the top 20 super boosters’ and ‘Find out which plants, tools and materials are star performers - the best of the best’. Now, we will not be separated from this book of tried and tested tips, handy hints and expert know-how, because we are certain that our plants will perform at their peak and the true potential of our plot will be brought out at last. Now we are confident that our roses will bloom for longer, our fruit trees will yield a more plentiful crop and our borders will have the wow factor. 288 pages 21.5cm x 27.5cm in riotous colour. £14.99 NOW £5.75


72806 LITTLE GREEN BOOK OF GARDENING: 250 Tips For an Eco Lifestyle by Diane Millis


If you want to garden in an environmentally conscious, organic and sustainable way, then this little book contains 250 practical tips that will set you on the path to becoming truly a ‘green’ gardener. It will enable you to grow food free from


chemicals and pesticides, reduce pollution, recycle your food scraps and garden cuttings into crops that will grow more food and create a haven for wildlife. Invest in drip irrigation or go grey using bath water, grow from seed, recycle plastic pots, grow fragrant flowers and herbs to use fresh or dried, make good use of your fruits and use eBay to buy or swap unwanted items. 128pp in paperback.


£6.99 NOW £2.50 GREAT BRITAIN


The English winter – ending in July, to recommence in August.


- George Gordon


73063 CROSS COUNTRY: English Buildings and Landscape from


Countryside to Coast by Peter Ashley


You would hardly expect a book about the English countryside to begin with a photo of HP baked beans stacked on a shelf, or a puzzling notice stating simply:


‘BULLS EGGS’. These do, however, afford a glimpse into the wildly idiosyncratic persona of our author. He admits to having ‘an insatiable appetite for interesting- looking things’ and states unequivocally that ‘rural England is stuffed to the gills with them’. He also confesses to making people fall off bar stools with the constant recounting of his travels - like a bucolic Ancient Mariner - but we found his book anything but boring. As you may by now have realised, his love of buildings and landscape extends far beyond architecture in picturesque surroundings. By combining personal reminiscence with an ear for intriguing anecdote, he takes readers on an enlightening jaunt - wittily and irreverently showing them just how richly varied the fabric of England is. Here are abandoned Cornish tin- mines above tide-washed caves, Norfolk boat sheds leaning crazily over salt marshes, Romney Marsh shepherds’ houses hidden behind roadside willows, a sheep-wash in the Cotswolds and a disused petrol pump in Herefordshire. Throughout, the wry commentary and superbly unusual pictures allow us to rediscover and delight in what we may have deemed to be familiar territory. 240 pages 25cm x 19.5cm with super colour photos and maps. £24.99 NOW £7.50


72775 THE MANOR REBORN: The Transformation of


Avebury Manor by Sian Evans


Avebury Manor has been owned by 13 different families in its 450- year history, and in 2009 the National Trust decided to embark on a full restoration in collaboration with the BBC. In a high-profile


series co-fronted by Penelope Keith, the Trust lovingly brought the house back to life, transforming key areas so that visitors could imagine living there in different periods. The plan was to design, decorate and furnish nine rooms and a garden in historically accurate ways with experts such as Dan Cruickshank on hand to advise. This high-quality book takes the reader through the history of the house and the process of reconstruction. Designs for the restoration were taken from other period properties, for instance tapestries from Speke Hall and Cotehele inspired hand-painted hangings in the Tudor manner, while Stourhead, Kedleston, Stowe and Wimpole Hall provided elegant models for formal rooms in Enlightenment style. The artist and restorer Corin Sands was commissioned to paint pictures based on the work of the Queen Anne painter Jakob Bogdani. Arts and Crafts artists such as William Bell Scott and William Morris provided models for Victorian decoration, while a 20th century room focuses on the Roaring Twenties and the emancipation of women. The kitchen and kitchen garden are central to the restoration. Gorgeously illustrated, beautifully produced and full of fascinating information. 260pp, colour photos on every page.


£20 NOW £9


69628 LONDON, PORTRAIT OF A CITY


by Reuel Golden


London’s remarkable history, architecture, landmarks, streets, style, cool, swagger and stalwart residents are pictured in hundreds of compelling photographs sourced from a wide array of archives around the world. London’s history is told through hundreds of


quotations, lively essays, and references from key movies, books, and records. From Victorian London to the Swinging 60s, from the Battle of Britain to Punk, from the Festival of Britain to the 2012 Olympics, from rough pubs to private drinking clubs, from Royal Weddings to raves, from the charm of the East End to the wonders of the Westminster, from Chelsea girls to Hoxton hipsters - in page after page of stunning photographs, reproduced big and bold like the city itself, London at last gets the photographic tribute it deserves. From Taschen, text in English, French and German. 9.8" x 13.4", 552 pages. ONLY £28


REDUCED


71160 NANCY LANCASTER: English Country House Style by Martin Wood


A niece of Lady Astor, Nancy Lancaster was one of the American heiresses who gave the British aristocracy a makeover in the early 20th century. Moving to the much grander Ditchley Park, again a Baroque mansion created by Gibbs, Nancy had the help of professional interior designer Sybil Colefax in creating the magnificent interior which was a refuge for Winston Churchill during the war. Colefax adapted the Arts and Crafts designs of William Morris for a circle of bohemians, politicians and aristocrats which included Lord Curzon and Lady Diana Cooper, and her guiding principle was comfort, which chimed well with Nancy’s American style. When Nancy’s marriage to Ronald Tree came to an end, she bought Colefax’s business and went into partnership with the interior decorator John Fowler. Haseley Court became her very personal masterpiece. 200pp, lavishly illus in colour.


£35 NOW £8


Great Britain 15


72732 MOST AMAZING ROYAL PLACES IN BRITAIN


The Palaces, Battlefields and Secret Retreats of Britain’s Kings and Queens edited by Jo Bourne et al This is a regional guide to the great estates, historic houses and special places made famous by the monarchs of England, Scotland and Wales, over 400 sites. They range


from the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror to assert his dominance over the people of his new capital city over the period 1077 to 1097 to the somewhat more humble White Eagle pub at Rhoscolyn on Anglesey, where the current Prince and Princess of Wales used to have lunch when they were courting and William was training with the RAF. The book is arranged by region and within that by county, and each entry has directions and postcodes for satnavs and there is a full description and potted history featuring all the important facts, figures and people. There is a Taj Mahal-style image of the interior of Salisbury Cathedral with the reflective water provided by the font, the most famous pair of wellies in the world (the Duke’s) at Walmer Castle in Kent and possibly the most ornate fireplace ever at Cardiff Castle, for which the expression “no expense spared” could have been first coined. 223pp softback. £14.99 NOW £7


71278 SHROPSHIRE VILLAGES by the WI and Bill Meadows


Upton Cressett, Selattyn, Pulverbatch, Pant, Mukston, Maesbrook, Llanyblodwel, Highley and Eaton Constantine are among the 100 villages which still retain their character and charm and are a source of pride and delight to both local people and visitors. Here the text is written by local members of Shropshire’s Women’s Institutes and their entries record the history, architecture, atmosphere, anecdotes, people and events which have made each village different from its neighbours. 50 colour photos by Bill Meadows. 96 glossy pages, softback. £8.95 NOW £3


71316 CHICHESTER THEN


AND NOW by Phil Hewitt A beautiful city dominated by its medieval cathedral, market cross and elegant Georgian architecture, Chichester has a rich history and a thriving community. The market cross of 1501 is built in the most elaborate and intricate Gothic style. Celebrated pubs include The Old Punch House where Elizabeth I may or may not have been


entertained by Lord Lumley in 1591. Among the book’s fascinating archive photos are a double spread of the fire brigade steam pump in 1906, Eastgate Square under deep snow in 1881, and a wonderful photo of fashionable young women marching arm in arm down East Street in 1950. 160pp, 100 archive b/w photos. £16.99 NOW £4


71317 GUILDFORD LIFE PAST AND PRESENT by Stanley Newman


Guildford is a market town and cathedral city with a strong local character, and this collection of past and present photos highlights the town’s development from 1865. In 1896 the centre changed radically when the cattle market dominating North Street moved to Woodbridge Road. Victorian photos show North Street full of animals, but in the genteel 1930s the Jo Lyons tea room competed with the much-loved Corona restaurant. The river sustained three watermills in the 19th century and became a centre for leisure and entertainment in the 20th. 192pp, over 350 photos. £14.99 NOW £3.50


71845 IMAGES OF ENGLAND: Bath by Paul De’ath


Pulteney Bridge photographed in 1901 looks rather sad before the improvements were made; Laura Place in 1915 is a beautiful tree-lined square named after Henrietta Laura Pulteney. In the same place, Sainsburys Brothers deliver wine and spirits in one of their lorries, Union Passage is bustling with merchants and Parade Gardens look as elegant as ever. This book was first published in 1995 and refers to bookshops sadly long gone. 2007 reprint, 200 archive photos. 128pp in paperback.


£12.99 NOW £3.75


71861 TOWPATH GUIDE: The Kennet and Avon by Nick Corble


From Bath to Reading by way of Claverton, Limpley Stoke, Bradford-on-Avon, Devizes, Pewsey, Wilton, Hungerford, Newbury, Thatcham, Theale to Reading and the lovely villages of Kintbury and Wootton Rivers, we are guided along a beautiful stretch of water. Covering an area a mile or two either side of the canal, this invaluable resource for the canal boater, day tripper, angler, walker or local historian. Here are castles, mills, waterfront inns and even a colour photograph of a horse- drawn boat, suggestions for accommodation and camping, shopping, eating and drinking. Maps, colour and b/w photos. 192pp in paperback. £12.99 NOW £3.50


71873 PORTRAIT OF CANTERBURY


by John Boyle and Elizabeth Edwards The author was Town Clerk of Canterbury for 30 years. In his original work, he traced the city’s history from its earliest times, its record of growth from the Saxon period onwards, the coming of St Augustine, the founding of the cathedral and the growth of the medieval city around it, the rebuilding of the city after a third of its central area was destroyed by aerial attack in 1942 and, later, the coming of the new university. This beautifully illustrated and written account unites the two cities, puts Canterbury’s rich past and lively present into perspective and provides insight into the city’s fascinating history for the contemporary observer. Updated. 190 pages lavishly illustrated in colour and b/w. £16.99 NOW £6


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