Edwardian Country Life: The Story of H. Avray Tipping - Hardcover

An excellent and richly illustrated book.

A real treat. Often figures such as Tipping can be overlooked in the wider scheme of history, but the book focuses on a man with such a broad understanding of our architectural and horticultural place in the world, that it is worth a look.

Gives a brilliant picture of the homes and gardens he [Tipping] made and the mileu in which he moved.

Helena Gerrish now lives at High Glanau; she has not only restored Tipping's fine garden and opened up its far-reaching views, but with this excellent and richly illustrated book has succeeded too in rescuing its talented maker from near obscurity.

If Tipping remains a private and rather enigmatic man, this superb book does his acheivements full justice. All who are interested in gardens will find it a delight to read and study.

Gerrish has revived both his memory and one of his gardens... It is a fine effort and I rally to her hero's principles of landscaping - "to retain the grace and feeling of the wild, while adding the eclectic beauty of the cultured". If the pull of the country catches you, remember Tipping's words.

One pleasure of 2011 has been Helena Gerrish's 'Edwardian Country Life', the story of Henry Tipping garden designer, architectural historian, maker of three important gardens in Wales and a general bundle of gentlemanly Edwardian energy. It is good to read about the Arts and Crafts movelment in gardens without finding it to be undiluted Lutyens-and Jeykll, and Gerrish's generous array of illustrations helps to fill out our picture of Edwardian gardens as well as reminding us that garden making has never stopped at the River Severn.

Well ordered, well written and superbly illustrated.

A fascinating account of this intriguing man.

Helena Gerrish has made it her business to rediscover this enigmatic man, his gardens, sketches and photographs; her book makes for fascinating reading.

Henry Avray Tipping (1855-1933) was a wealthy architectural historian and garden designer. As Architectural Editor of Country Life he made it essential reading for everyone interested in Britain's great country houses, their furnishings and their gardens.
Tipping restored a bishop's palace for himself and his mother, built one of the last important country houses in which to entertain the Edwardian great and good, and, after the First World War, commissioned his ideal 'cottage'. Always the garden came first; each was a perfect Edwardian idyll.
As a fine gardener herself, the author describes Tipping's own Monmouthshire gardens at Mathern Palace, Mounton House and her own High Glanau Manor, as well as gardens he designed for others, notably at Chequers and Dartington Hall. Tipping, who had no family of his own, was central to the lives and work of such distinguished garden designers as Robinson, Jekyll and Peto.