“His passion for architecture, gardening, bookbinding, typography and collecting nourished his diverse and imaginative output” [David Buckman 2003]
“His scholarly work is of immeasurable importance” [Farnham Trust 2017]
“An undaunted, meticulous and discriminating collector with quite a phenomenal memory” [Historic England 2017]
“He strove after perfection in many related fields in which he became an authority” [Contemporary Arts Society]
“adding, subtracting, re-arranging, cutting, scraping, overlapping, and qualities of surface, translucence, direction, colour and shape determine initial liaisons that lead to my own revelations of things previously unknown” [Temple 2003]
He developed a deep understanding of the materials and processes involved in early book production which fed into his art work.
His life long research and established collections help us to value and appreciate – and so protect – our beautiful landscaped parks and historic buildings that we in Britain have inherited.
The postcard collection provides probably the world’s most comprehensive and data on 1890 – 1910 British public parks and gardens and their associated architecture, features and designs. This unique pictorial record of their planting, sculptures, tea gardens and bandstands as well as costumes, fashion, amenities, vehicles, pastimes and daily scenes of Britain in days gone by.
The spirit of the mission of this site is to
- Acknowledge Temple’s extraordinary memory and celebrate his unique combination of talents.
- Learn more about the life of this remarkable man by bringing together to one site all available information on his life’s work. He was a very modest man and did not seek publicity, so only by doing this are we able to reveal, for the first time, an estimate of the sum total of his activities.
This project is inevitably ongoing and will progress quickly. We are continuously updating and adding to content. We welcome your comments, questions, suggestions or additional information you may have, and will add it here.
