The progress of garden archaeology

The probable first garden archaeological excavations in a modem sense were undertaken when Hadrian's Villa, near Rome, was taken over by the Italian government in 1870, and the Nilus Canal was discovered and restored.1 The work at Pompeii from 1910 to 1923, when statues, pergolas and fountains were restored, made the peristyle garden well known to the public. Across the Atlantic in Williamsburg, the capital of colonial Virginia, the landscape architect Arthur A. Shurcliff devised the replanning and replanting of the gardens, which in 1930 and 1931 included the large garden behind the Governor's residence. 2 See Brown and Chappell, pp. 70-7, in this issue. This work spawned a large number of Colonial Revival gardens, many sponsored by the Garden Club of Virginia, and even one restoration in England, at Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire. 3 See DIX, pp. 11–17, in this issue.