Elisabeth Whittle | |
---|---|
Education | Master of Arts |
Occupations | |
Years active | 1993-present |
Known for | Garden historian |
Notable work | Book: Historic Gardens of Wales: An Introduction to Parks and Gardens in the History of Wales |
Elisabeth Whittle is a garden historian from Wales. A former president of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust and a trustee of the National Botanic Garden of Wales, her published works include studies of the historic gardens of Wales and of the history of Glamorgan and Gwent. She is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
For twenty-one years Whittle worked for Cadw, the Welsh historic environment agency as their Inspector of Historic Parks, Gardens and Landscapes. She retired in 2014.[1][2] She is a former president of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust and is a trustee of the National Botanic Garden of Wales.[1] Whittle, the holder of a Master of Arts degree and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London,[3] lives in Usk, Monmouthshire.[2]
Whittle was a member of the Garden History Society from the early 1980s and between 1989 and 1997 co-edited, with Jane Crawley, their journal Garden History.[4][5] She has a particular interest in Tudor and Stuart gardens.[6] In 1991 she re-created the 15th-century garden of Sir Roger Vaughan at Tretower Court in Powys, Wales.[7] She also discovered evidence of the 17th-century appearance of the gardens at Raglan Castle, now destroyed, which has been published in the Cadw guidebook.[8]
In 1994 Whittle led work on the compilation of the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales to assist owners, developers and planners to manage the country's landscape heritage.[9] She became a trustee of the Hobson's Conduit Trust in 2018 and vice-chair in 2020.[10] John Newman, author of the Gwent/Monmouthshire volume in the Pevsner Buildings of Wales series, recorded his debt to Whittle in the foreword to his work.[11]