Polesden Lacey

About Simon AkeroydSimon Akeroyd & Vicky BevanVicky Bevan

Simon Akeroyd is Head Gardener for the National Trust's English Riviera portfolio which includes Agatha Christie's Greenway Coleton Fishacre Bradley Manor and Compton Castle. He was previously Garden and Countryside manager at Polesden Lacey. He has worked as a Garden Manager for the Royal Horticultural Society and producer for the BBC working across a range of gardening programmes. Simon's other titles include The Good Gardener Shrubs and Small Trees The Allotment Handbook and Lawns and Ground Cover. A historian of material culture Victoria Bevan has worked for the National Trust for the last five years and is House and Collections Manager at Polesden Lacey. Vicky has a Masters from the Royal College of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum in History of Design where she specialised in Renaissance and Tudor culture. She has worked for a number of heritage organisations including the Churches Conservation Trust and the Centre for the Study of the Domestic interior and has written guidebooks for Hall Place in Kent and Salem Chapel in Devon.