Thomas Mawson started the Lakeland Nursery in Windermere in the 1880’s, and later went on to became a landscape architect of high repute.

Thomas Mawson was born at Scorton in Lancashire on 5th May 1861, and because of his family’s poverty, he was forced to leave school at the age of 12 to make a living. He worked in the building trade with an uncle in Lancaster, who happend to have a strong interest in gardening.When his father died, he was taken by his mother to London, where he was employed by a firm of nurserymen.

Eventually he moved back to the North of England, and set up a nursery business in Windermere with his two brothers. Lakeland Nurseries was so successful, that after initially concentrating on the plant trade, Thomas Mawson was able to dedicate himself to garden design work.

  s first commission was a local property – Graythwaite Hall, where his designs contained a blend of architecture and planting that was to become a feature of his work. He then went on to design the gardens at Langdale Chase, Holehird, Brockhole and Holker Hall around the turn of the Century. In spite of his spreading fame, he still undertook local work, and in 1909 he designed the formal garden at Rydal Hall.

Later he went on to design gardens not only throughout Britain, but also in Europe and Canada. In 1908 he won a competition to lay out the gardens for the ‘Palace of Peace’ at the Hague. He advised on the development of the Smoky Mountains National Park in America.

Thomas Mawson became interested in town planning and public parks. In 1923 he was awarded the position of president of the Town and Planning Institute, and in 1929 he became the first president of the newly formed Institute of Landscape Architects.

The 45 acre public park in Barrow-in-Furness is based on a design by Thomas Mawson. The park was recently restored to his original plans with Heritage Lottery money, even re-making and matching the buildings to old photographs. The park has since won the Landscape Institute Heritage and Conservation award 2007, a prestigious national award.

He published two considerable volumes in 1901, ‘The Art and craft of Garden Making’,which is widely accepted as the foundation of modern landscape architecture. He was all his life a devout Christian, and emphasised in his writing the importance of gardens to the general well-being of mankind.

Mawson died at Applegarth, Hest Bank, Lancaster, on November 14th 1933, and is buried in Bowness Cemetery within a few miles of some of his best gardens.