The age of the eccentric
English Garden Eccentrics: Three hundred years of extraordinary groves, burrowing, mountains and menageries
Todd Longstaffe-Gowan (Paul Mellon Centre, £30)
BOOKS on eccentrics are always attractive to the browser, conjuring up images of harmless cranks immersed in pointless projects to the indulgent amusement of their peers. Add in the words ‘English’ and ‘Garden’ and the whole thing is irresistible. We like to think of ourselves as a nation of eccentrics and the garden is a legitimate venue for mysterious goings-on.
It comes as a surprise, therefore, to read that the august philosopher John Stuart Mill, writing his masterwork in 1859, felt ‘that so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time’. He needn’t have worried: to judge from this book, England was awash with eccentrics throughout the 19th century. Many of them populate the pages here—surely, one
