The Most Glorious Prospect reveals the history of garden visiting in Wales between the years 1639-1900 ? a bygone era of garden visiting brought to life using travellers' diaries, letters and experiences. Bettina Harden documents the historic gardens of Wales as experienced by contemporary travellers in a book that is endlessly fascinating, intricately detailed and delightfully humorous. This is an authoritative insight into how the great gardens were first made accessible to the polite world, before being opened up to a wider middle-class audience. The travellers' diaries, letters and tours of Wales conjure up a lost world of gardens now largely vanished or altered beyond measure from their first construction. Gardens featured: Chirk Castle; Margam Abbey; Powis Castle; Newton House (Dynevor); Picton Castle; Wynnstay; Plas Newydd, Anglesey; Baron Hill; Penrhyn Castle and Estate; Stackpole Court; Piercefield; Hafod, Plas Tan-y-Bwlch and Plas Newydd, Llangollen. AUTHOR: Bettina Harden spent her working life as a publisher, specialising in books on art, architecture and design. Now a historic garden owner with a passion for garden history, she was Chairman of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust 1997-2003. She is also the founder and Chairman of Trustees of The Gateway Gardens Trust, the first charity devoted to extending access to heritage through social inclusion. She gained her MA in Garden History from the University of Buckingham in 2014.
