Historic & Botanic Garden Training Programme (HBGTP)
English Heritage manages the Historic and Botanic Garden Training Programme (HBGTP). The scheme trains those passionate about a career in horticulture in the skills needed to care for a historic or botanic garden.
How Trainees benefit
The HBGTP provides full-time paid work (minimum of national living wage) as a trainee in a significant heritage garden. The gardens participating in this project are some of the most iconic and reputable across the UK, cared for by highly experienced garden teams. Trainees can work in celebrated landscapes such as those by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, renowned historic gardens from Elizabethan to Edwardian periods, and award-winning gardens capturing international influences from France, Holland, Italy and Japan.
Trainees have the opportunity to work alongside skilled horticultural professionals, they create projects, undertake regular plant identification tests and journalling. By working alongside professional teams within exceptional gardens, trainees and apprentices build a solid technical knowledge and acquire high-level practical skills. They also benefit from a wider programme of supported group learning and a cohort of like-minded peers. Twice per year the candidates get together on the trainee Seminar and trainee Study Tour. At the end of the academic year (August) trainees take part in a graduation ceremony to celebrate what they have achieved.
“I’ve been so happy here, I’ve been enjoying my time at Osborne so much, and I think I’m really inspired to stay in this and to make this my career for life!”
Trainee, Osborne House
Alan Titchmarsh MBE - Historic and Botanic Garden Training Programme Ambassador
“I'm really proud to be the ambassador for the Historic Botanic Garden Training Programme. We have tremendous skills in this country, and it's vital that we keep them going. We can do that through this training programme.”
- Alan Titchmarsh MBE, Historic and Botanic Garden Training Programme ambassador
Alan Titchmarsh became an apprentice gardener with his local council at 15 – an experience that helped inspire him to begin his incredibly successful career as a gardener, broadcaster and writer. We’re delighted that Alan has endorsed the Historic and Botanic Garden Training Programme by becoming its first-ever ambassador.
This programme offers trainees invaluable on-the-job experience at some of the country’s most important gardens. But it receives no funding from government, and relies on the support of donors to keep it going and growing.
“English Heritage needs your help to make sure the programme is funded. It would be disastrous if we were to allow these skills to escape our grasp.”
– Alan Titchmarsh
Our placement gardens
It isn’t just our trainees who benefit from the HBGTP. Placement gardens benefit too, by taking on enthusiastic people who are committed to a future in horticulture. The HBGTP team work hard to find partner gardens as well as those in the care of English Heritage. For more information about the scheme and how to apply please visit https://hbgtp.org.uk/
Audley End House and Gardens
Audley End House was one of the greatest mansions of early 17th-century England. Capability Brown swept away the remnants of a declining formal garden to create extensive views, a serpentine lake, and more natural planting.
The gardens feature elegant garden buildings, such as the bridge of the River Cam, which are the work of Robert Adam. There are also exquisitely restored kitchen gardens and acres of parkland to explore.
Audley End House and GardensWalmer Castle
The gardens at Walmer Castle, built by Henry VIII on the Kent coast mix formal and informal styles, grand-scale herbaceous planting and naturalistic woodland. The Penelope Hobhouse-designed Queen Mother’s Garden is a tranquil combination of still water, rich planting, and cool shade.
The Broadwalk Garden features an undulating cloud yew hedge and colourful double borders inspired by horticulturist and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. Walmer’s nineteenth-century Glen has recently been restored, and there is a 300-year-old Kitchen Garden providing seasonal produce for the café.
Wrest Park
Wrest Park is one of the few places in the world where visitors can see the evolution of landscape gardening over the last 300 years.
The site incorporates 90 acres of beautiful gardens showcasing French, Dutch, Italian and English styles side by side. The landscape incorporates elements by renowned architects and garden designers including Nicholas Hawksmoor, Thomas Archer, Batty Langley, William Kent and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.
Thank You
For more information about the scheme and how to apply please visit: https://hbgtp.org.uk/
The National Garden Scheme has made a transformational pledge of £125,000 for three years, which will enable seven trainees per year to participate in the training programme. English Heritage is very grateful for the support of the National Garden Scheme.
The project is also supported by a range of trusts and individuals including the Royal Horticultural Society Bursaries Scheme, the Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, and The Stanley Smith (UK) Horticultural Trust.
For more information about supporting the scheme, please contact development@english-heritage.org.uk
Thank you for your support.