Rosemary Verey

Rosemary Verey, OBE, VMH (21 December 1918 in Chatham, Kent – 31 May 2001 in Cheltenham) was an internationally known English garden designer, lecturer and prolific garden writer who designed the famous garden at Barnsley House, near Cirencester.

She was born Rosemary Isabel Baird Sandilands and educated at Eversley School, Folkestone, and University College, London. In 1939 she married David Verey, whose family owned Barnsley House.

Verey's most famous garden design was that of her own house, Barnsley House, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. In 1970 she opened the garden for one day to the public for the National Gardens Scheme but eventually it was open 6 days per week to accommodate the 30,000 annual visitors. In 1984 when her husband David died, Rosemary Verey began designing gardens for American and British clients. Most notable are HRH the Prince of Wales, and Sir Elton John, Princess Michael of Kent, the Marquess of Bute and the New York Botanical Garden.

Rosemary Verey was well known for taking imposing elements from large public gardens and bringing them into scale for the home gardeners use. Her laburnum walk, which has been photographed many times, is an example of this technique. The National Trust's Bodnant Garden in North Wales has a very large laburnum walk that inspired Verey to plant a similar, smaller scale laburnum walk at Barnsley House. Verey is also noted for making vegetable (ornamental potager) gardens fashionable once again. The potager at Barnsley House was inspired by that at the Château de Villandry on the Loire in France.

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