Landscape architect Laurence Fricker grew up in Taunton, Somerset. He trained at the University of Reading from 1953 to 1958, originally studying horticulture, then becoming one of the first students on the new course in landscape architecture under Frank Clark.
Mr Fricker's first job was as a planning assistant to Somerset County Council. From here he moved to work at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London before becoming a lecturer on the postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture at the University of Edinburgh from 1962 to 1968.
In 1968, Mr Fricker joined Portsmouth College of Art (later the University of Portsmouth) as a research fellow. He retired in 1993.
Laurence Fricker drew attention to the historical importance of the gardens at Hestercombe in Somerset from the 1960s onwards and helped to bring about the restoration of the formal gardens in the 1970s, and the 18th-century landscape garden in the 1990s.