About us > Consultants

Consultant for Cheshire, Somerset & Derbyshire – Marion Mako
Marion Mako is a freelance garden historian and designer who has worked in both the UK and USA, specialising in English herbaceous planting. She has also lectured at the University of Bristol for the Garden History MA and carried out research on public and private gardens covering a wide variety of subjects. In addition Marion leads bespoke garden tours and illustrated talks and has recently filmed a mini series about follies for the BBC which was aired in September 2007. The Historic Gardens of England: Cheshire was published in May 2008 and The Historic Gardens of Somerset will be published in May 2010. She is now acting as consultant for the Derbyshire volume, which is being jointly supported by the Derbyshire Gardens Trust and The Leverhulme Trust.

Consultant for Staffordshire – Dr Dianne Barre

After early retirement from the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Birmingham, Dianne Barre completed her PhD at Bristol University in 2006. Her area of study was the lost formal gardens of Staffordshire, 1690-1750. During her time at Birmingham she organised part-time courses for the general public, taught architectural history and garden history and also led study tours in England and France. Dianne is particularly interested in the architecture of garden buildings and has enjoyed finding examples and also plans and elevations of little known or unknown buildings for the county book. The Historic Gardens of England: Staffordshire was published in September 2009.

Consultant for Warwickshire – Diane James

Diane James lives and works in Warwickshire, and knows the gardens and landscapes of the county well having lived in Polesworth, Bidford-upon-Avon and Warwick. She has worked in conjunction with Warwick Museum on two exhibitions: Fifties Fantasy: Themes and Motifs from the 1950s and early 1960s, and Prayer and Passion: The Story of Priory Park.  She completed her MA in Garden History at Bristol University in 2007, carrying out research into subjects which included the gardens of the designer W.H. Romaine-Walker, and the influence of the myth of Sir Guy of Warwick on the development of the pleasure gardens at Guy’s Cliffe.  Diane continues in her research of local gardens and is particularly fascinated by the historical threads linking landowners, their friends and relatives, and commissioned designers. The Historic Gardens of Warwickshire will be published in March 2011.

Consultant for Herefordshire – Dr Jane Bradney

Jane Bradney completed her PhD at Bristol University in 2008 researching the fashion for Italian gardens across England during the first half of the nineteenth century. She now lectures to students of garden history and heritage management and researches a wide variety of gardens and designed landscapes. Her particular interest in the work of Humphry Repton will find resonance with her role as consultant for her adopted home county of Herefordshire.