Florence Clarke’s winning essay, ‘The Follies of a King-Duke’, is a fascinating exploration into the world of Stanislas Leszczynski, King of Poland (1704-09, 1733) and Duke of Lorraine from 1737 to 1766, whose residence in Lunéville was sometimes called the Versailles Lorrain. Stanislas’s gardens were part of the eclectic generation of gardens whose designers explored new aesthetic horizons beyond the establishment formality or an introverted vision of life.

Florence Clarke wins £250 and membership of the GHS for a year. The prize will be awarded at the Society’s summer garden party. This is the fourth consecutive year that a Bristol University student has won the prize.

Judy Preston, another student on the course, was runner-up for her essay entitled ‘In Search of the Picturesque and Such-like Flimsy Stuff ’, which explores the framing of landscape for the 18th- and 21st-century tourist, featuring caricatures by Thomas Rowlandson and satirical verse by William Coombe.