Book Review: Therapeutic Landscapes by Clare Hickman.

Therapeutic Landscapes: A history of English hospital gardens since 1800  by Clare Hickman 

The designed garden space, our micro-environment has fundamental reasons for its planning, conception and implementation. The garden can be a place of pastoral calm, to find solitude after the day. Maybe the space functions on a lesser level, and is purely a place to entertain or to relax, by simply maintaining it. Whichever role the garden assumes one thing is unarguably true, the garden space is what we need to function and to be aware of the natural environment around us, no matter on what scale. The garden in a higher or lesser way can bring us peace and improve the psyche. With this in mind, Clare Hickman in her fascinating and insightful book demonstrates clearly and cleverly the importance of the hospital garden and the perceived therapeutic value to speed recovery from physical or mental illness. The idea that a garden can improve the well- being generally of a patient is not a new idea; Clare looks at the work of 16th Century physician Andrew Boorde who stated that, ‘a person’s house should have a prospect or view in order to avoid ill health’.

Clare states that the ‘aim of this work is to draw on detailed site specific research to explore the medical and cultural significance of a variety of therapeutic landscapes created over the past 200 years’.  This indeed has been overlooked by garden historians as Clare rightly says, these gardens seen as ‘unimportant additions’.

It is interesting to read about the rise and fall of the hospital garden and factors that govern them such as economics and the drive towards ‘clinical effectiveness’ that at times as meant functionality and sterility outweighed aesthetic value to the patient. The case has sometimes been that the psychological benefits are overlooked which is important in terms of economics itself, as Clare makes the point in the book that patients with access to a garden or the ability to see a green space can need less intervention and have a speedier recovery time, a cost saving in itself.

The book looks at English hospital gardens since 1800 and comes up to present day. The conclusion discusses the modern approach to hospital gardens and it is reassuring to read the quote by Clare Cooper Marcus that, ‘appealing, soothing and accessible spaces in hospitals are simply essential not dispensable’. But in these times of economic instability and austerity, with NHS budgets cut to the bone, cost of implementation and maintenance will continue to be a curtailing factor, gardens being seen as non-essential, despite the facts that show otherwise. Clare explains that the naturalistically orientated designer Dan Pearson is designing some hospital gardens and that his design for the Charing Cross, Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre, ‘certainly seem like part of the coherent whole and an essential part of the buildings fabric’.

The book is a scholarly work and must equate to an inestimable amount of research. A person could not produce a work such as this without an overriding interest in the subject; thankfully Clare obviously has this, which means another important facet of garden history is brought to the public domain. I recommend this book as an interesting and excellent read.