European Gardens: History, Philosophy and Design

Garden design and usage has been a feature of human civilization as far back as Neolithic times, when the first gardens began to be used for residential, horticultural and sacred tasks. Tom Turner follows the entire history of the European garden from its prehistoric roots right up to the present day in this beautifully illustrated book.

European Gardens is divided into ten periods of history and garden development, detailing the advancement of land usage for over 10,000 years. Some of the topics covered in this comprehensive book include the Egyptian gardens of the Pharaohs, the castle gardens of medieval times, eclectic gardens of the nineteenth century and abstract gardens of the last 100 years. The geographical scope of this book covers the whole of the European continent, and touches the garden designs of North Africa and the Middle East.

Turner is a skilled landscape architect and garden historian, who supports his engaging writing with his own detailed plans and diagrams. European Gardens also features almost 1,000 colour photographs from across the continent allowing the reader to see for themselves how the design and structure of gardens has developed over time.

A companion to the Asian Gardens book, published by Routledge in 2010, European Gardens is a development of the original Garden History book from 2004.

Tom Turner teaches on the undergraduate and masters programmes in garden history and landscape architecture at the University of Greenwich in London.