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The University of Buckingham’s Master’s programme in Garden History offers the opportunity to pursue research at Master’s level in any one of a wide range of garden- and landscape-related topics: from explorations of individual sites; their designers, gardeners and owners; to studies of the social and political use of gardens, or aspects of their heritage conservation and management.

While individual research topics should be closely focused, the course encourages students to take a broad contextual view of the links between gardens and designed landscape, and of history and culture more generally.

The Master’s degree can be taken either full-time and completed in a single academic year, or taken part-time and extended over two years. Although original individual research is the prime focus of the programme, there is also a strongly collegial aspect to the course, as all research students meet regularly throughout the year for a series of early-evening seminars delivered by a range of distinguished academics, professional garden historians and owners and managers of designed landscapes.
The academic year begins in October with the Course Introduction Day in London, and a series of seminars and field trips and access to the on-line lectures. In-person Tutorials and classes will normally take place at The University of Buckingham’s London offices at 51 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, WC1E 6HJ, very close to the British Museum but field trips are across the country.

Seminars are held at The University of Buckingham’s London offices at 51 Gower St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 6HJ, and provide an opportunity for students to meet and debate with the visiting speaker. Seminars may be followed by a working dinner at which discussion continues. There are also a series of ‘field trips’ to historic gardens and designed landscapes organised through the year, and access to a series of on-line (recorded) lectures provided by the Gardens Trust. Students can choose to access these as an on-line class every other Thursday.

Specialist classes are also offered by the Faculty on palaeography (the study of historic handwriting) to enable students to read contemporary manuscripts with speed and accuracy.

The MA is awarded solely on the basis of the dissertation (there are no ‘exams’), and the relationship between the student and supervisors is therefore at the heart of the course.
Guidance will be provided on suitability of topics but the choice of subject area is ultimately the student’s own.

The maximum length for the MA dissertation in the School of Humanities is 25,000 words (or approximately 75 pages at line-spacing of 1.5), excluding notes and references. Students and their ‘First Supervisor’ meet regularly on a one-to-one basis to discuss, plan, and review the dissertation as it develops through the year and students also have access to a Second Supervisor.

The University of Buckingham MA programmes are intended to impart all the skills necessary for the student to work as an independent researcher and writer, but the MA can be undertaken just as fulfillingly as an exercise in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and as a means of exploring areas of enquiry that are of particular interest to the student. The MA by research is ideal for members of the county Gardens Trusts as well as professionals in the arena of historic gardens, and anyone with an academic interest in history of designed gardens and landscapes.