History of the Garden

The area on which the Garden was established was once the home paddock of the now-demolished ‘Wilderness’, a Victorian house built in the remains of a famous landscape garden created at Whiteknights Estate by George Spencer, Marquis of Blandford (later Fifth Duke of Marlborough) between 1798 and 1819.
Harris Garden at sunset

A small botanic garden was established here by the University in 1972 when the Department of Botany moved from London Road to Whiteknights. In 1987, the Department of Horticulture and Landscape also moved to Whiteknights, and work began to extend and enhance the Botanic Garden to meet the wider teaching and research requirements of the new School of Plant Sciences. At this time, Richard Bisgrove, garden historian and Director of Landscape Management at the University, drew up a plan for the garden that included features still providing interest now throughout the year.

Since 1987, the Friends of the Harris Garden has supported the development and maintenance of the garden in partnership with the University of Reading. Their weekly volunteers supported our gardeners with major features in the garden, including the Flower Stream and Damp Garden, the Ornamental Orchard, the main path suitable for wheelchair access, planting for the herbaceous borders, Meadow bulbs, the Red Border, and the Dry Border.

In 2010, with the closure of Plant Sciences, responsibility for the main part of the garden passed to the Facilities Management Directorate of the University, and a major revitalisation programme began.

Who was Professor Tom Harris?

Professor Tom Harris was a distinguished palaeobotanist and renowned gardener at the University of Reading, having joined from Cambridge. Professor Harris ran the Botany department at the University, sharing his knowledge of plant morphology and dedicating a great deal of teaching work within the department.

In recognition of the botanic garden’s new role to extend and enhance teaching, the garden was renamed in 1987 to the Harris Garden in memory of the late Professor Tom Harris (1903–1983).