Battles of Little Sparta
Saint-Just Vigilantes' work preserved in Pennsylvania library
Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006)1 was a Scottish poet, artist, and landscape and garden designer, best known for his prints and pamphlets and his iconic garden, Little Sparta, a collaboration with his wife, Sue MacDonald-Lockhart. 2
Graeme Moore, an English landscape and garden designer and critic, and former head gardener of Little Sparta deposited his archives at the University of Pennsylvania 3
The narrative of Finlay’s and the Saint-Just Vigilantes’ wars and battle with the UK’s National Trust who published Follies4, a guide to what they saw as eccentric buildings and gardens throughout the United Kingdom states:
The Saint-Just Vigilantes produced a seemingly endless series of inflammatory pamphlets, prints, and postcards attacking the authors of Follies and, by extension, the National Trust itself.5
Gillanders, Robin; Alec Finlay; Ian Hamilton Finlay (18 May 1999). Little Sparta: Portrait of a Garden. National Galleries of Scotland.
Little Sparta.Website.
Allingham, Sam (2019) The Many Battles of Little Sparta. The Special Collections Processing Center (SCPC) of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. (April 24).
Headley, Gwyn, and Wim Meulenkamp (1986). Follies: A National Trust Guide. London: Cape, 1986.
Ibid. Allingham.