“Being able to cultivate your own food represents one of the most profound expressions of your independence, self-governance, and emancipation,” asserts Valerie Goode, founder and CEO of the Coco Collective, a community gardening initiative led by Black individuals in south London.
“When you entrust your food production to others, you are effectively handing over your health, well-being, and identity to those individuals. By reclaiming our food sources, we also reclaim our strength.”
The collective, established four years ago to develop a 1,200-square-meter area of neglected land in Lewisham, welcomes all but especially aims to unite members of the African diaspora “to heal and learn about our history through the earth.”
Many volunteers tending to the garden “may only be one or two generations removed from those who worked the land,” Goode explains, “and our ancestors before them knew nothing other than a life connected to the soil.” She describes the collective as “radical” because it honors Mother Earth and acknowledges our deep, inseparable ties to it.
This vision is striking and motivating, yet it’s an unexpected discovery in a library. Nonetheless, the collective’s work plays a crucial role in a new exhibition at the British Library in London, which delves into and celebrates the social and often political narratives surrounding cultivation, the acquisition of plants, and land usage in British history.
While the term radicalism may not commonly be associated with British gardens, the power dynamics of land ownership, labor, and crop cultivation have always been contentious issues, as the exhibition demonstrates. Gardening has historically served as a lifeline rather than merely a leisure activity—one member of the Coco Collective shares in a short film featured in the exhibit: “We’ve been growing food longer than we’ve been writing books.”
“Gardening transcends being just the nation’s beloved pastime; it harbors a remarkable and sometimes surprising past,” notes Maddy Smith, the curator of printed heritage collections from 1601-1900, and the lead curator for the exhibition.
Previous exhibitions at the library highlighted “the more grandiose elements of gardens,” Smith explains, “but we recognized that gardening resonates with many diverse communities, and aimed to reflect that through the artifacts and stories we showcased.”
Among the artifacts in the library’s collection is an 11th-century illuminated manuscript on herbal remedies—the only surviving work of its kind from Anglo-Saxon England—as well as *Profitable Instructions of Kitchin Gardens*, authored by Richard Gardiner of Shrewsbury to instruct his community on vegetable cultivation amid a series of poor harvests in the 1590s.
Common land, which was once communal property for rural societies, has faced enclosures since the population decline during the plague in 1348, leading to social upheaval and rebellion. A 1791 map of Bow Brickhill in Buckinghamshire reveals how the land had been subdivided among various gentlemen (and some women), with portions designated for “the Rector” and a small area labeled “the Poor’s Allotment.”
“Throughout history, individuals have had to contend for their gardening rights against attempts to privatize and enclose land,” Smith states, “and we endeavored to highlight that struggle.” The exhibition includes materials from the 17th-century Diggers and Levellers movements advocating for land reform, as well as accounts of gardeners in Levenshulme, near Manchester, who planted cabbages in defiance of privatization. Referred to as the Levenshulme land grabbers in 1906, these activists claimed they were cultivating six acres of unfenced church property “for the sake of the unemployed.”
British gardens have never served solely as functional or decorative spaces, as illustrated by this exhibition. The obsession with orchids in the early nineteenth century, beautifully detailed in period books, led to the devastation of their native ecosystems. The Royal Navy’s desire for New Zealand flax resulted in the abduction of two Māori chiefs in 1788, whom they demanded teach them the cultivation methods (the chiefs declined, as they regarded it as women’s work).
Even Capability Brown’s exquisite 1771 design for lawns at Blenheim Palace is contextualized within the grass monoculture it helped propagate in the British landscape. It is paired with a cheeky modern poster by artist Sam Wallman, criticizing lawns as “a symbol of control, dominance, and status.” The poster proclaims: “Hoes over mows.”
Unearthed: The Power of Gardening will be on display at the British Library until August 10.
