A manuscript by Stephen Switzer titled A Synopsis or Practical Compendium of Husbandry & Gardening dated c.1735-40, £5200 at Dominic Winter.
It was there that Switzer rose up the ranks, formed friendships with the architects John Vanbrugh, Nicholas Hawksmoor and Charles Bridgeman, and began to supply some of the great houses of England with plants.
Chatsworth, Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace, Nostel and Brimsthorpe Castle were among the Brompton Nurseries’ clients.
By the mid-1720s Switzer had premises of his own at Westminster Hall and had published several works on gardening including The Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardiner’s Recreation (later retitled Ichnographia Rustica) in 1718, The Practical Fruit Gardiner (1724) and The Practical Kitchen Gardiner (1727).
Practical guide
A manuscript by Stephen Switzer titled A Synopsis or Practical Compendium of Husbandry & Gardening dated c.1735-40, £5200 at Dominic Winter.
A 48-page manuscript titled A Synopsis or Practical Compendium of Husbandry & Gardening offered by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) in South Cerney on May 15 was thought to be in Switzer’s own hand.
At the head of the contents the author gave his address as ‘S. Switzer att the Flower Pot over and against the court of Please, Westminster Hall ‘ and later references ‘my Practical Kitchen Gardiner’ for further information on etymology of the kidney bean.
The auction house believes it could not have been written before 1735 as a passage in the text references ‘the late Lord Peterborough’, the then ambassador to the court of Turin, who died on a voyage to Lisbon on October 20, 1735.
The apparently unpublished manuscript, with many corrections and revisions in the same hand, came for sale from a private collection in Derbyshire with an estimate of £800-1200. It proved a modest guide as it hammered for £5200.
