Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
What happens when you call on book history to examine the history of gardens?
Join us as we delve into the origins of tree houses, as seen through the eyes of a garden historian with a passion for the history of the book, and explore the influence of 19th century French literature on Portuguese garden making.
This year’s Foxcroft Lecture will scale new realms as we roam freely through books, libraries, architecture, trees, and rusticity.
About the author
Richard Aitken is a historian, curator, writer, and collector specialising in the history of gardens, homemaking, and books. His publications include Gardenesque, Botanical riches, The garden of ideas, Cultivating modernism and Planting dreams.
Over the last decade he has immersed himself in Portuguese garden history and has researched and lectured in Lisbon, Porto, and Madeira. He collects books from the 18th and 19th centuries, known to have been influential in the history of Portuguese garden making.
About the Foxcroft Lecture
The annual Foxcroft Lecture honours the pioneering bibliographer Albert Broadbent Foxcroft, who began working at State Library Victoria in 1902 at the age of 17 until his untimely death in 1938. He left an enduring legacy of scholarship and was highly regarded and influential in developing the Library's rare books collection during the 1920s and 1930s.
If you require a descriptive transcript for this video, please email us at websupport@slv.vic.gov.au.
What happens when you call on book history to examine the history of gardens?
Join us as we delve into the origins of tree houses, as seen through the eyes of a garden historian with a passion for the history of the book, and explore the influence of 19th century French literature on Portuguese garden making.
This year’s Foxcroft Lecture will scale new realms as we roam freely through books, libraries, architecture, trees, and rusticity.
About the author
Richard Aitken is a historian, curator, writer, and collector specialising in the history of gardens, homemaking, and books. His publications include Gardenesque, Botanical riches, The garden of ideas, Cultivating modernism and Planting dreams.
Over the last decade he has immersed himself in Portuguese garden history and has researched and lectured in Lisbon, Porto, and Madeira. He collects books from the 18th and 19th centuries, known to have been influential in the history of Portuguese garden making.
About the Foxcroft Lecture
The annual Foxcroft Lecture honours the pioneering bibliographer Albert Broadbent Foxcroft, who began working at State Library Victoria in 1902 at the age of 17 until his untimely death in 1938. He left an enduring legacy of scholarship and was highly regarded and influential in developing the Library's rare books collection during the 1920s and 1930s.
If you require a descriptive transcript for this video, please email us at websupport@slv.vic.gov.au.
