Welcome to the New Arcadian Press

Talks by Patrick Eyres

  1. 4th November. The Rival Wentworths: Georgian Mansions, Monuments and Landscapes – at Wentworth Woodhouse. During the 18th-century the splendour of the two South Yorkshire Wentworths was stimulated by the competitive country house building and landscape gardening of the rival cousins who were also political opponents. Although superior for half a century, the Tory at Wentworth Castle was eventually eclipsed in aristocratic rank, political status and wealth by the Whig at Wentworth Woodhouse. Keep an eye on the website of the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust.
  2. 2nd December. The Economics of the Georgian Landscape Garden – Zoom. Where did the money come from? Through the example of selected landscape gardens, a range of economic sources will be discussed – from agriculture and commerce to industry, warfare and slavery. Keep an eye on The Gardens Trust’s website.
  • Unforgettable Gardens: Little Sparta, for The Gardens Trust (Zoom, 2021).  Accessible on the Little Sparta Trust website.
  • Learning from The Blackamoor, for The Gardens Trust (Zoom, 2021). See David Marsh’s blog about this lecture series ‘Other Voices in Garden History’.
  • The Political Use of Sculpture in Georgian Gardens, for the Sussex Gardens Trust (Zoom, 2021).
  • Wentworth Castle and Wentworth Woodhouse: Georgian rivals united through 21st-century restoration and public access, for the Friends of The Botanical Garden Sheffield (Zoom, 2021).

The New Arcadian Journal

This website is the most economic place to collect New Arcadian Journals and other publications from the New Arcadian Press:

See Reviews and Bibliography for some of the published appreciations and commentaries.

“The feisty, visually distinctive and intellectually robust New Arcadian Journal … is refreshingly original” (TLS) as the unique fine press book that combines art and scholarship. The NAJ investigates the cultural politics of historical landscapes through engaging with the vestigial presences of architecture, gardens, monuments, sculpture and inscriptions. The NAJ also explores the resonance of garden works by contemporary artists, especially Ian Hamilton Finlay at Little Sparta and elsewhere. The NAJ has also revelled in the poetics of place and the breezy terrain of the upland walker.

NAJ 73-74l

Still available

~ The Blackamoor & The Georgian Garden: NAJ 69/70. The statue of a kneeling male African supporting a sundial, The Blackamoor a.k.a. The Kneeling Slave, was created when Britain dominated the Atlantic Slave Trade, and it was recorded as the most popular 18th-century lead garden statue. This study includes an inventory of Blackamoor sites and the principal case studies focus on the royal gardens of Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex, and the aristocratic gardens at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire, and Wentworth Castle, South Yorkshire. Prompted by the restoration of The Blackamoor at Wentworth Castle, the study also includes an account of the slave ship, Cannon Hall, named after the nearby gentry estate.

~ The Ian Hamilton Finlay Collection: Since 1981 the New Arcadian Press has published many works by or relating to Ian Hamilton Finlay. Many are still available ~ 6 NAJs, 11 Broadsheets, 1 small book and 4 cards ~ as a set (£235, excluding post and packing), or individually.

~ The Improvement Garden at Stockwood Park, Luton, was opened by Sir Roy Strong in 1991.
This public garden is the largest (and finest) of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s permanent landscape installations in the UK, outside of Little Sparta. In 2020, it was awarded Grade II* status by Historic England and added to the Register of Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes in England. See the feature in NAJ 33/34 and the two articles in NAJ 61/62.

Other publications

See the 70 Broadsheets (1981-2011) as well as the Books, Cards, Posters and Ephemera. The Broadsheets were published as serial pages of a Book-in-Progress. Printed onto A4 letterhead paper, they comprise pithy comments on the cultural and political environment, and are commemorative, lyric, satirical or polemic.

In Memoriam

Grahame Jones, 1952-2020, Ian Gardner, 1944-2019, Chris Broughton, 1949-2015. 

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