Gardenesque imagery in the representation of regional and national identity: the Cotswold garden of stone

Research which has highlighted the symbolic power of rural landscapes to picture English national identity has tended to homogenise those rural landscapes, eliding the role of regions in the construction of national identity. This paper argues that the construction of a unique regional identity for the Cotswolds was informed by and itself informed the construction of English national identity in the first half of the 20th century. This paper examines one aspect of this relationship; the use of gardenesque imagery to construct both the nation and the region, focusing particularly on the ‘garden of stone’ metaphor which recurs in non-fictional rural writing, guide books and poetry about the Cotswolds from around 1900, reaching a peak in the interwar years. This paper examines the religious and secular symbolism of the two components of the metaphor; the garden and the stone. The paper is predicated on the notion that gardens are repositories and generators of meaning and value. Using the language of slow growth, seasonal cycles and continuity along with the motifs of composition and creation, the garden of stone describes an organic community in a reciprocal relationship between people, soil and stone. The idea of organic communities is shown to resonate within representations of both the Cotswolds and English national identity and is also explored in some depth.