Hestercombe prides itself on being a rare example of some of the greatest garden design in the world, and we’re always happy to support other historical and innovative gardens. The Hestercombe archive is vast so we were delighted when we had the opportunity to take over the database of Parks & Gardens UK. With the Hestercombe Gardens Trust looking after Parks & Gardens UK both these treasured archives can now be combined. In September last year P&G UK together with Hestercombe Gardens Trust received £97,900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to secure the future of its database and website of historic designed landscapes. With records of more than 9,100 historic designed landscape sites and more than 2,400 biographies of associated people and organisations the P&G UK archive is a real gem. The Hestercombe archive itself contains a significant collection of documents, photographs, plans and manuscripts relating not only to Hestercombe but to other parks, gardens and designed landscapes in the United Kingdom. The combination of these two resources will be unmatched by anything else. With Hestercombe now looking after the P&G UK database we will be working with the Country Gardens Trust and others to realise the database’s considerable potential. Drew Bennellick, Head of Landscape & Natural Heritage at the Heritage Lottery Fund, said the project would offer a unique opportunity to bring together two incredibly important sources of data and research for the very first time. You can see the current P&G UK database at www.parksandgardens.org