Discussion Questions

1. Each of our heroines --- Venetia, Beth, Diana, Stella and Emma --- is a transplant to Highbury. Discuss how each of them found “home” in Highbury. What pivotal moments do they share? How do the relationships they form help them each finally put down roots?

2. Class plays a significant role in each of the time periods. How is Venetia’s relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Melcourt different from the relationship Beth and Stella have with Diana? How is it different from the relationship between Emma and Sydney and Andrew? How are the relationships the same? Are you surprised by how much or how little changed over the course of 114 years?

3. Venetia suffers a miscarriage, Diana loses her son in an accident and adopts another, Stella never wanted to be a mother but finds herself a de facto mother to Bobby, and Emma has a complicated relationship with her own mother. Discuss how each woman navigates motherhood and how expectations of motherhood shift from Venetia’s time to Diana and Stella’s and finally to Emma’s in the present day. Do any of their challenges remind you of your own mother or your experience with motherhood? How have society’s expectations around motherhood changed? How have they stayed the same?

4. All of the women in the novel work and have ambition. Venetia writes that she appreciates how Matthew “doesn’t treat me as though I’m made of bone china or an oddity playing at being a gardener” (page 126). Stella expresses to Diana, “I wanted to go to London. To work and then maybe do more” (page 304). Diana herself is counseled by Father Devlin, “you are a woman of independent means. You may choose to live the life you want to lead. You could play the harp at every hour of the day, or you could run this hospital” (page 293). On Beth’s first day as a land girl, she “felt vital and useful for the first time in a long time” (page 33). And in present day, Emma proudly runs her own business. Discuss how each of these women breaks from expectation in order to pursue her ambitions. How are their struggles the same, even a hundred years apart? How are they different?

5. Matthew and Henry (and Charlie, to some extent) support the creativity and ambition of Venetia and Emma as they craft the gardens of Highbury House. Compare these relationships, and how these men assume a role secondary to the women. How does their support further the visions of each woman? Can you think of moments of hindrance?

6. Diana and Cynthia have a tense relationship. Cynthia is critical of Diana’s grief, and Diana strains under Cynthia’s attempts to seize control of her home and hospital in spite of Diana having once “been convinced that her future sister-in-law was perfect” (page 263). Discuss how this relationship differs from the other female relationships in 1944 (Diana and Stella, Stella and Beth, Beth and Ruth) and what you think it reveals about each of them. Where does their contempt come from, and how do they each use it to compensate for frustrations they have? Is their tension ultimately productive?

7. Which time period do you wish you could visit? Who from the novel would you most like to meet? Why?

8. Highbury House and its gardens is the only constant through each of the timelines in the novel. How is the house a character in its own right? What does it teach and give to all of the people who call it home --- temporarily or otherwise? How is the pull of it the same or different for each of the characters? Are there any characters for whom it is more a prison than a sanctuary? Is there a place in your life that you feel has given you purpose, or perhaps driven you to look for more?

Adapted from: http:// https://www.readinggroupguides.com/reviews/the-last-garden-in-england/guidewww.