Course summary

Home of the two-year degree, the University of Buckingham, based in the South East of England, is ranked 6th for Student Satisfaction in the UK (National Student Survey, 2020). We are proudly independent and not-for-profit, and offer courses in Allied Health, Business, Computing, Education, Humanities, Law, Medicine, Psychology and Security and Intelligence. We are one of the few universities in the UK that offer September and January start dates for almost all of our courses. Based in Buckingham on a riverside campus, we are only 20 minutes’ from Milton Keynes central station and a short drive from Bicester, Aylesbury, Banbury and Northampton. There is free parking on-site and we are within easy reach of London and Oxford. The University of Buckingham’s Master’s programme in Garden History offers the opportunity to pursue research at Master’s level in any one of a wide range of garden- and landscape-related topics: from explorations of individual sites; their designers, gardeners and owners; to studies of the social and political use of gardens, or aspects their of conservation, botany, ecology, horticulture, archaeology, buildings – and much else besides. While Individual research topics are closely focused, the approach of the course is to encourage students to take a broad view of the links between gardens and landscape, and of history and culture more generally. The choice of subject area is ultimately the student’s own. The Master’s degree can be taken either full-time and completed in a single academic year, or taken part-time and extended over two years. Although original research it the prime focus of the programme, there is also a strongly collegial aspect to the course, as all research students meet regularly throughout the year for a series of early-evening seminars by some of the most distinguished scholars working in the history of early-modern England. The seminars are held at The University of Buckingham’s London offices at 51 Gower St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 6HJ, and provide an opportunity for students to meet and debate with the visiting speaker. Each seminar is followed by a working dinner at which discussion continues. (The full seminar programme is given below.) The MA is awarded solely on the basis of the dissertation (there are no ‘exams’), and the relationship between the student and supervisor is therefore at the heart of the course. The maximum length for the MA dissertation in the School of Humanities is 25,000 words (or approximately 75 pages at line-spacing of 1.5), excluding notes and references. Student and supervisor meet regularly on a one-to-one basis to discuss, plan, and review the dissertation as it develops through the year. The University of Buckingham MA programmes are intended to impart all the skills necessary for the student to work as an independent researcher and writer – skills that are valued by both academic and non-academic employers. But the MA can be undertaken just as fulfillingly as an exercise in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and as a means of exploring areas of enquiry that are of particular interest to the student. The academic year begins in October with classes on how to undertake archival research, how to plan and structure a dissertation successfully, and on the many online resources that are available to assist in historical research on the Tudor and Stuart periods. Specialist classes are also offered on paleography (the study of historic handwriting) to enable students to read contemporary manuscripts with speed and accuracy. Tutorials and classes will normally take place at The University of Buckingham’s London offices at 51 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, WC1E 6HJ, very close to the British Museum.