This event has passed.
From Brass Works to Botany: The Complex Legacy of Champion’s Georgian Garden
July 13, 2025 @ 2:15 pm - 4:30 pm
| £5
Join historian and RHS Chelsea Flower show medal winner Dino Zelenika for a journey through one of Britain’s most unique 18th-century gardens, where industrial innovation met botanical passion. Step into the hidden world of William Champion, the Quaker brass magnate of Warmley who created this remarkable Grade II garden in the 1750s using waste from his revolutionary zinc works. Discover how his brass works – the first of their kind in Europe – in turn revolutionised the world.
Explore the astonishing grotto with its grotesque faces and gaping jaws, Neptune’s giant statue, and the echo pond that still echoes today – noted by Sir Joseph Banks in 1767.
But this is Georgian Britain’s complex legacy: beautiful gardens built on global trade including brass goods exchanged for enslaved people in West Africa, before Champion’s empire collapsed into bankruptcy by 1770.”
Date: Sunday 13 July 2025
Time: 2:15pm
Place: Kingswood Heritage Museum (meet at the entrance)
Cost: £5 per person, paid in cash on the day
Wear comfortable shoes and bring waterproofs in case of inclement weather, though this Sunday is looking like it’ll be a scorcher!
About Dino:
I was born in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina but have lived in Bristol for 26 years. I hold BA and MA degrees in History (University of Bristol). I specialise in environmental history, which explores how people interact with and shape the natural environment. I am an RHS Chelsea Flower Show medal winner, having exhibited orchids in 2025; a group of plants I have specialised in for 20 years. In July 2025, I became the Chair of William Champion’s Garden.
