Pleasure Garden, Issue Seven – Spring/Summer 2020

Taking inspiration from the pleasure gardens of 18^th century London this magazine engages its public with an array of attractions – ranging from the past to the present, the sedate to the salacious. Here we step away from the practicalities of the garden instead placing it within a wider cultural context. The pleasure garden was always a place to escape to – a fantasy in a garden, filled with art, music, fashion, society and sex. It is this mix that we transport to the printed pages of Pleasure Garden.

In this issue:
Issue 7 comes out of the blue, as it also dives into the beautiful blue, looking at our connection with water. Pleasure Garden on Sea plots the course of the pleasure garden as it manifests its ultimate incarnation on the coast. Jo Metson Scottdocuments part of this architectural legacy in her tour of British seaside piers, while Hugo MacDonaldcontemplates the return to favour of life beside the seaside in ‘The Constant Sea’.

We consider the possibility that every man is an island, with a look at poet and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay and his garden at Little Sparta. Alison Morrisexplores Venice’s marriage to the sea in the annual celebrations of the Festa della Sensa, Eddie Wreyvisits Djibouti in ‘The Lake which is also a Desert’, Rosalind Jana talks to gardener Alys Fowler on the Birmingham canals and Ben Weller and Linda Brownlee cross the water to visit two rocky island gardens.

The issue takes a river trip in India and examines the subjects of dazzle ships, queer sailors and fountains. With photography from Lucie Rox, Richard Demarco, Chloé Le Drezen, Laura Coulson and more…