Mavis Batey

Mavis Batey Mavis Lilian Batey Order of the British Empire MBE (née Lever, 5 May 5 1921 – 12 November 2013) was an English codebreaker in WW II at Bletchley Park, author, garden historian, and president of the The Gardens Trust Garden History Society from 1985 until her death in 2013. She was awarded in 1985 the Veitch Memorial Medal and appointed in 1987 Order of the British Empire Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Quotes In the Utrecth Peace years of peace which followed Utrecht and the George I of Great Britain#Accession in Great Britain and Ireland accession of the House of Hanover House of Hanover, grandiloquent homes were built for the nation's leaders and heroes with great avenues of approach and triumphal arches. Villages which were found to stand in the way of these grandiose undertakings were removed out of sight. Sweeping changes were made at the seat of the Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford Earl of Orford, the victor of Battles of Barfleur and La Hougue La Hogue, which necessitated the moving of the village of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire Chippenham in Cambridgeshire; Henderskelfe was destroyed in the creating of John Vanbrugh Vanbrugh's dramatic Castle Howard for the Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle Earl Marshal; Easton Neston disappeared in the Hawksmoor lay-out for the magnificent seat of the Earl of Pomfret#Ancestral titles and achievements Earl of Pomfret in Northamptonshire. The great Whig palaces and extensive gardens at Stowe House Stowe, Houghton Hall Houghton and Wotton House Wotton Underwood overran ancient villages and hamlets that stood in the way of improvements. Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who had envisaged an avenue of trees between London and his Wimpole Estate Cambridgeshire seat, began his improvements by removing the village of Wimpole which lay in the shadow of his house. The village of Gayhurst in Buckinghamshire was resited to give breathing space to the family of Nathan Wright (judge) Sir Nathan Wrighte, Keeper of the Great Seal to Queen Anne. ...By the middle of the century great gardens were being made, not only to reflect their creator's importance or political beliefs, but to demonstrate the excellence of his taste. The new vogue was not for great avenues, canals, fountains and grand parterres but for naturalized landscape. Wealthy families in every county bought up vast tracts of land to make natural gardens, which would look like landscape paintings; some took the English countryside for these picture gardens and with the help of Capability Brown idealized and, 'improved' it; the Society of Dilettanti Dilettanti with memories of their Grand tour Grand Tours revelled in the creation of Italian classical landscapes. 1968 Nuneham Courtenay; an Oxfordshire 18th-century Deserted Village Oxoniensia XXXIII 108–124 Oxford Architectural and Historical Society http://oxoniensia.org/volumes/1968/batey.pdf (quote from pp. 108–109) … The accepted idea of the Conservation and restoration of cultural property restoration of a building, furniture or a painting, as the rehabilitation of an object already in existence, albeit in imperfect form, cannot be applied to gardens which are by their nature organic. They have allotted life spans and have been dug up and refashioned over the centuries. ... At Ham House the National Trust has been able to restore the garden of the great Lauderdale House Lauderdale house from original plans, so that the design of the parterres and Wilderness (garden history) formal wilderness seen today is much as Evelyn described it when he visited in 1678. At Westbury Court Garden Westbury Court in Gloucestershire the National Trust has restored a Dutch garden Dutch style water garden from engravings, existing evidence and plant list which have enabled them to use contemporary plants including old cultivars of Turkish irises, apples and pears and old tulips. A current true restoration is being undertaken at Nuneham Courtenay, Oxfordshire, where the poet William Mason's famous beds, painted by Paul Sandby in 1777, are being reinstated with authentic planting. … The ultimate in scholarly garden reconstruction is the Roman garden at Fishbourne Palace executed through excavation and Palynology pollen analysis.. The conservation and restoration of historic gardens Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society Bristol 1984 114–122 https://hbap.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/HBAP/CQ56694/Vol%2028%201984/7/‘The%20Conservation%20of%20Historic%20Gardens’%20by%20Mavis%20Batey.pdf (quote from pp. 119–120) Quotes about Mavis Batey Mavis fell in love with her future husband, Keith Batey, himself one of the Bletchley “break-in” experts, after he helped her with a particularly difficult code breaking problem: “I was alone on the evening shift in the cottage and I sought the help of what Dilly Knox Dilly called 'one of the clever Cambridge mathematicians in Hut 6’. We put our heads together and in the calmer light of logic, and much ersatz coffee, solved the problem. Dilly made no objections to my having sought such help and when I told him I was going to marry the 'clever mathematician from hut 6’ he gave us a lovely wedding present.”After the war Mavis Batey brought her indefatigability to the protection of Britain’s historical gardens. Her interest began in the late 1960s, when her husband was appointed the “Secretary of the Chest”, the chief financial officer of Oxford University. They lived in a university-owned house on the park at Nuneham Courtenay and she set about ensuring that the overgrown gardens were restored to their original landscaped state. Mavis Batey — obituary. Mavis Batey was Bletchley Park codebreaker whose Enigma breakthrough proved crucial to the success of D-Day The Telegraph November 13, 2013 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/special-forces-obituaries/10447712/Mavis-Batey-obituary.html External links Category:1921 births Category:2013 deaths Category:Cryptographers Category:Historians from England Category:Non-fiction authors from England Category:People from London Category:University College London alumni Category:Women authors from England Category:Women born in the 1920s