The American Museum at Claverton Down has announced the name of their new Head Gardener. He’s Mr Andrew Cannell who is a native of the Isle of Man but will be coming to Bath from a job with the National Trust in West Sussex..
He will be the man who will oversee some interesting changes to the landscape where it is hoped the American-styled gardens will be extended. These proposals are discussed elsewhere on the Virtual Museum site in an interview with the museum’s Director Dr Richard Wendorf.
Andrew took his undergraduate degree in Geography at the University of Nottingham and then received his horticultural certification at Myerscough College, Preston, and at Wisley, the Royal Horticultural Society Garden in Surrey, where he won six awards, including the Top Trainee Prize and the Chittenden Academic Award for highest overall academic results.
Andrew worked for a year in Manchester as a school gardening advisor, training teachers and working with schools to develop their gardens as part of a multi-curricular venture. Andrew returned to Wisley for a year as an RHS horticulturalist and has served for the past three years as Senior Gardener for the National Trust at Woolbeding Gardens in West Sussex.
As the second-in-charge, he has had responsibility for organising a team of 5 staff members and 20 volunteers, having built the volunteer base and completed the Trust’s volunteer management training.
Andrew is married to Melissa Cannell, a fellow gardener also trained at Wisley – and a native of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. They have an eight-month-old son, Rowan, and plan to live in the Coach House on the estate.
