Category Ronald Lindsay
Henry Adams and Lady Lindsay in Washington
Within the intersecting circles of the story of the British Embassy, Henry Adams is the center point in its early history. His beloved home across from the White House brings together several elements of this Landscape of a Washington Place: the Embassy’s first landscape gardener (Elizabeth Sherman Hoyt, later Lady Lindsay); Beatrix Jones (later Farrand […]
On the 75th Anniversary of the Washington Visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth
In Canada, the 75th anniversary of the Royal visit to North America is being honored this year with special commemorative coins and whiskey. In the United States, there has been little historical account of the jammed-packed two days in the District of Columbia and northern Virginia during the inaugural trip to North America of the […]
Centre Island Revisited
The first ambassador’s wife to live in and influence the new British Embassy in Washington, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was the spirited Lady Lindsay. She has born Elizabeth Sherman Hoyt and grew up and died on Centre Island, New York. The place was formative to her character and early career, instilling a love of […]
Elizabeth Lindsay at the End
After leaving Washington and diplomatic life, Elizabeth Lindsay was to finally have a home and garden entirely of her own making. She initially intended to stay in New York for only a while before following Sir Ronald to England. But with the outbreak of war, the condition of her own health and unspecified “family problems,” […]
The End of the Lindsay Era and the Beginning of the War Years in the Embassy’s Gardens
Ronald Lindsay retired from the British Ambassadorship in Washington and set sail for England on 30 August 1939, landing just after war was declared on Germany. Elizabeth Lindsay never saw her husband again. His work and failing health confined him to his country for the duration. He died in 1945 and was buried next to […]
The Aftermath of the Royal Garden Party
Ronald Lindsay’s tenure as Ambassador to the United States finally came to an end in the summer of 1939, following the King and Queen’s trip to Washington and then on to New York. Lady Lindsay, exhausted from the preparations and attending criticism of those events, struggled to pack up from the Ambassador’s Residence, her main […]
Moving Images: The Royal Visit, British Embassy and Lindsay-Era Washington
The visit of the King and Queen to the nation’s capital in early June of 1939 was all about images, pageantry and symbolism. The first two videos here demonstrate the careful choreography of the event while offering rare, surviving and openly available views to the British Embassy gardens at the time. The other two films […]
The Royal Garden Party
Ambassador Ronald Lindsay was commanded to hold a garden party for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 8 June 1939, followed the next day by a morning reception for British subjects, and then a dinner, all at the Washington Embassy. These were to be the Lindsays’s last, but by far their most public and […]
The Embassy Gardens and Dumbarton Oaks
With the ridge of Clifton Hill between them, the British Embassy and Dumbarton Oaks have a shared legacy and stories, the memory of which has nearly been lost over the years. The original 19th-century estates of both sites were once part of the same Royal land grant, the Rock of Dumbarton. Before each gained renown, […]
Lindsay’s Plantings, Parties & Good Press
The design of the plantings that Elizabeth Lindsay did for the British Embassy gardens followed the tradition of Gertrude Jekyll. From extant, available photographs, plants were used as strong design elements, providing form, texture, and depth to the landscape with a predominate palette of greens. Lady Lindsay made the rose garden, in the largest terrace […]
Landscape of a Washington Place 
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