June 2023 Gilbert White’s House and Gardens has just become the first institutional member of the British Beekeepers’ Association for 80 years.
Rev. Gilbert White lived mostly in the Hampshire village of Selborne from 1720 to 1793. Also a keen gardener, he began to study nature by close observation – a process he called ‘watching narrowly’ – and wrote about what he discovered to his friends Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington. The letters were published as ‘The Natural History of Selborne’, in 1789. Since then, the book has never been out of print and is reputedly the fourth most-published book in English. By watching narrowly, White understood food chains, bird migration and the interconnectedness of things, which we now call ecology.
Oak tree planted c1730 by a young Gilbert White
His house and gardens opened as a museum in 1956 when money to buy the property was provided by Robert Washington Oates, the nephew of …
Rev. Gilbert White lived mostly in the Hampshire village of Selborne from 1720 to 1793. Also a keen gardener, he began to study nature by close observation – a process he called ‘watching narrowly’ – and wrote about what he discovered to his friends Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington. The letters were published as ‘The Natural History of Selborne’, in 1789. Since then, the book has never been out of print and is reputedly the fourth most-published book in English. By watching narrowly, White understood food chains, bird migration and the interconnectedness of things, which we now call ecology.
Oak tree planted c1730 by a young Gilbert White
His house and gardens opened as a museum in 1956 when money to buy the property was provided by Robert Washington Oates, the nephew of …