Mawson

By Geoff Cunliffe

The firm of Landscape Architects for the birth of the Fairhaven project in the early 1890s until at least the mid 1920s was Thomas H. Mawson and Sons of Lancaster and London.

Out of curiosity, I did a quick trawl of the web to see if there was any mention of them, and yet another fascinating story unfolded. One search alone found 964 pages referring to him and his work. You may be more acquainted with Mawson’s work than you think! His work ranged from landscaped garden plans through to much larger projects such as civic parks and city plans.

Thomas Hayton Mawson was born at Scorton in Lancashire on 5th May 1861. His father was a warper in a cotton mill. Because of his family's poverty, young Thomas was forced to leave school at the age of 12 to make a living. He worked in the building trade with an uncle in Lancaster, who happened to have a strong interest in gardening which nourished Thomas’s interest in horticulture. When his father died in 1877, he was taken by his mother to London, and here he was able to secure work with a number of landscape gardeners and nurseries. He returned to the Lake District in 1884 to establish his own nursery business in Windermere with his two brothers. Lakeland Nurseries was so successful, that after initially concentrating on the plant trade, Thomas Mawson was able to dedicate himself to garden design work.

His first commission was in 1889 at a local property, Graythwaite Hall, at Sawrey, about 3 miles south of the Ferry landing on the west side of Lake Windermere. Mawson was commissioned to design six acres around the Hall.

During the 1890s, Mawson continued to build his business and reputation. In 1898, in partnership with the talented architect and designer Dan Gibson, he designed the house and gardens at Brockhole, Windermere, which today is the administrative centre for the Lake District National Park.

He went on to more work and larger projects, designing the parks at Burslem and Hanley.

In 1905, Mawson began work for his most important private client, Mr W H Lever, later Lord Leverhulme. His first project was to form a municipal park from 400 acres of moorland at Rivington to the east of Bolton which Lever had won in an arbitration case (!).

Another project, recently restored, was the garden at The Hill at Hampstead, which featured an 800 foot terrace and pergola overlooking the Common. These and other projects for Lord Leverhulme were of heroic proportions for their day. 

Mawson divided his time between offices in Great Britain and Canada. He is well known for his pioneering Canadian landscapes, including designs for public grounds in Regina, Saskatchewan, master plans for two Universities and civic improvements for Ottawa.

Around the turn of the century, he went on to design at least twenty gardens in the Lake District such as Langdale Chase, Holehird, Cleeve How, Heathwaite, and Holker Hall (which the locals pronounce Hooker Hall).

By the mid 1920s, Thomas Mawson was suffering from the onset of Parkinson's Disease, but he was still able to dictate his autobiography, 'The Life and Works of an English Landscape Architect', which was published in 1927.

Many of Mawson's gardens have been destroyed but several excellent examples remain, including Graythwaite and Brockhole in The Lakes, Hampstead, Dryffryn Gardens in South Wales and Kearnsey Abbey, near Dover.

Many of his civic schemes survive, including the parks in Stoke and Stanley Park, Blackpool, although the design and execution of the latter owed more to his son Edward Prentice Mawson, Last year (2005), when a new Visitor Centre was opened at Stanley Park, Tom Mawson, then in his 80s and son of the Edward who originally designed it, made the pilgrimage down the tree-lined Mawson Drive with his daughter to see his father’s heritage.

One garden he designed was at Boveridge House in Dorset, part of which was reproduced at this year’s (2006) Chelsea Flower Show.

Thomas Mawson died at Applegarth, Hest Bank, Lancashire, on 14th. November 1933, aged 72. and is buried in Bowness Cemetery within a few miles of some of his best gardens.

Following the closure of Thomas H Mawson & Sons in the early 1980s, an archive relating to Thomas Mawson was established by the Cumbria Archive Service in Kendal, and the material therein is available to view by appointment. The archive comprises 14,000 plans and drawings of garden designs, town planning schemes, and architectural projects throughout the UK and abroad. There are also about 6,500 glass plate negatives and photographs recording the successful implementation of the designs.

But all in all, it was not a bit lifetime of achievement for a lad who left school at 12.