Between the spring of 1910 and the spring of 1912, sixty-eight women planted sixty-eight young evergreen trees and holly bushes in a two-acre field on the outskirts of the heritage city of Bath, England. This property was owned by the pro-suffrage Blathwayt family, who named their field of trees the “suffragettes’ wood” and also “Annie’s Arboretum,” after the working-class activist, Annie Kenney (1879-1953). The Blathwayts created this unique work of landscape design in response to the courage of thousands of women of all classes who participated in the fight to gain political equality for women. During the height of militant suffrage activism in England, the Blathwayts’ home, Eagle House became a frequent refuge for suffragettes who had survived force feeding in prison, widely considered to be a form of political torture.

Once their guests were strong enough to plant a tree in the arboretum on the hill behind Eagle House, the Blathwayts staged and photographed planting ceremonies with the suffragettes (this marvellous collection of about 300 plates have been scanned and digitized and may be viewed via the website, Bath in Time). Beautifully laid out with winding paths, floral borders and dedicatory plaques, the suffragettes’ wood was a place where women could recover their health and renew their connections with each other and their shared cause in a private, protected space. Most importantly, the field of trees was a living memorial to what the suffrage activism had already accomplished, and what it was still hoped to achieve. Sitting or walking through the suffragettes’ wood, women from all over England could gaze upon a space that would continue to grow into a future in which women would have political freedom and equality.

In the late 1960s the arboretum was destroyed to make way for a housing development, called Eagle Park. Today, only one tree remains from this unique work of feminist landscape design: a large Austrian Pine that can be seen from miles around. The Austrian Pine, planted by Rose Lamartine Yates (1875-1954) in October 1909, is located on private property and is thus physically inaccessible to the public. When I began my project in October 2009, there was no public acknowledgement of the historic importance of this tree, nor Eagle House. I wanted to find a way to make the feminist history of this site more public.

In memory of the suffragettes, their landscape project and their political achievements, I created a public, community-based artwork in October 2009 entitled The Suffragettes’ Orchard, using the word “orchard” to refer to what was, then, the as-yet unrecognized “fruit” of the suffragettes’ work. In this piece, I approached the current residents of Eagle Park, and offered them each a gift: a young, evergreen shrub. In return, the recipients were asked to share their knowledge about the arboretum, and, in memory of the missing arboretum, to plant or take care of the small bush.

The exchanges that came out of these moments of interaction with the community became the basis for further research in the Somerset archives, as well as more writing, the discovery of a complete set of photographs, as well as many boxes of clippings and living memories of the lost arboretum. These exchanges and research culminated in a public presentation at the conference, “More Than a Spa Resort”, held in Bath in April 2010. In response to that presentation, the City of Bath has agreed to plant a commemorative Austrian Pine in Bath’s Royal Victoria Park on International Women’s Day, 2011. The idea took hold and two further tree plantings were organized for International Women’s Week that same year. Dr Bobby Anderson and Dr Elaine Chalus, then both teaching at Bath Spa University, were the prime movers behind this important week of events and it is thanks to them that these tree plantings took place. The trees – in Alice Park, Victoria Park, and on the grounds of Bath Spa University – are the first civic memorials to women in Bath.

Click to listen to a short interview that discusses the tree plantings and related exhibition (2011).

Dan Brown is a local photographer and lover of history who started the Bath in Time photographic out of his own appreciation of Bath history. Dan went out of his way to help me with my research about the suffragettes. In conjunction with the week of tree plantings, we co-curated an exhibition of suffragette photographs and plaques from the arboretum, saved by a local family after the arboretum was bulldozed. (A low-resolution version of our exhibition catalogue can be viewed here.) I want to single out Mary Frayling, who as a young girl personally saved many of the plaques from destruction, as well as the original photographic glass plates. Mary spoke with me at length about this one-of-a-kind feminist landscape; her memories were instrumental in the mapping work I later did to understand the placement of the trees. She decided, after seeing all our activities for International Women’s Week to donate her entire collection of plaques and glass plates to the Bath Public Library, so that other students and scholars could access this history for years to come. I am so grateful to have met Mary before her death, which came just four months after making her generous gift to feminist history.

I went on to write a book about my research and creation about the Bath suffragettes, as well as other ways in which women left their mark on the city of Bath. Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765–1965: Engaging with Women’s Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape was published in 2012 by Ashgate, and reissued as an on-demand paperback in 2017. An excerpt of the book may be downloaded here. As well, I published a scholarly essay on the suffragettes’ other spatial actions in Bath, outside the arboretum, called “Suffragette City”, in Bath History (2013).

Thanks to further efforts by Dan Brown and other activists, today visitors to the former arboretum can find a plaque along Eagle Road, with Rose Lamartine Yates’ tree rising up behind it. And other artists have now taken up where I left off with my project, notably Walking Forest, a group of women artists who have worked with the landowner where Rose’s tree still grows. They have harvested its cones and have cultivated seedlings from this remarkable, historic tree. Members Shelley Castle, Anne-Marie Culhane, Lucy Neal and Ruth Ben-Tovim are slowly seeding a new forest through this work, and gifting seeds to women and environmentalists whose work represents, to them, new frontiers of feminist courage.

This post is dedicated to the people who made The Suffragettes’ Orchard project possible: Bobby Anderson, Anne Buchanan, Jean and Morris Dawe, Dan Brown, Bryan Chalker, Elaine Chalus, Mary Frayling, Colin Frayling, Trish Goodwin, and Eileen Paddock.