Garden tourism

The situation with the many enormous Imperial gardens is less clear, but many visitors managed to enter them and record their impressions.

[4] There was probably less access to private Japanese gardens, which tend to run right up to parts of the house, and when first created they seem to have been mostly restricted to visitors from the elite, guests of the owner.

The best Japanese gardens have been continuously and carefully maintained, and probably look more like they did several centuries ago than their equivalents anywhere else in the world.

In China large numbers of famous gardens have been restored, probably rather differently from their original appearance.

The grandest private houses, especially in the country, had similar arrangements; in both cases the owners saw their gardens as expressions of their own status and prestige.

The owners of great country houses, especially those distant from the capital, often only visited them for brief periods, typically in the summer, when access might be more restricted.

[a] John Evelyn also recorded his visits to gardens in France and Italy, as did Fynes Moryson.

The Queen's Institute of District Nursing offered them funds which in turn encouraged the Trust to work on additional garden projects.