Brenda Colvin

“{{cite web|title=Women of the Welfare Landscape (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council)|website=The Museum of English Rural Life (merl.reading.ac.uk)|url=https://merl.reading.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/01_Introduction.pdf}}”

“{{cite web|title=Colvin, Brenda (landscape architect); Brenda Colvin Collection; 19 boxes; 37 rolls; 1920s-1970s|website=The Museum of English Rural Life (merl.reading.ac.uk)|url=https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/brenda-colvin/}}”

“Compare the appearance and social atmosphere of the average country village having a well-mixed community with those of a modern housing estate composed of all one type of house and garden. Monotony seems to make for squalor or genteel snobbery according to the class of house …”

“In our soft {{w|Climate of the British Isles|island climate}} too many {{w|evergreen}}s become oppressive, and we need a very carefully balanced combination of evergreen and deciduous planting to give us the right degree of comfort, variety and satisfaction. But with a brighter light and greater extremes of temperature, a much higher proportion of evergreen is felt to be right.”

“... the spread of urban conditions constitutes a terrible threat until we have learned to appreciate the real necessity for {{w|National Landscape|natural beauty}} in the surroundings at every stage of human life. We must realize, in all its implications, the truth that {{w|Matthew 4:4|man does not live by bread alone}}, and the full development of intellectual or spiritual life, no less than mere existence, requires contact with nature and natural beauty.”

“For most of the {{w|British Isles}}, tree cover is the normal condition. Any area below the five hundred metre contour that is left to itself and protected from vandalism, {{w|grazing}} or other biotic factors, will revert to forest unless exposed to high {{w|gale}}s or {{w|salt spray}}.”