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Chatsworth – Grandiloquent Ghosts…
Chatsworth House from the River Derwent A few years ago, on a visit to Versailles, I was shocked by the restoration of the Courtyard façade on the approach from the town. Built in the late 17th century...
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Newby Hall Gardens – A Picture With A Frame
View from the Long Borders towards the House Newby Hall, near Ripon in North Yorkshire, has been described as ‘one of the most elegant houses in the country’ and that is a suitably fitting description....
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Jupiter Artland – A Site-Specific Sculpture Garden
‘Cells of Life’ by Charles Jencks Visits to sculpture gardens carry high hopes, but I usually come away feeling disappointed, in part due to the subjective choice but also because an artwork is not...
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Kew 4 – Through The Seasons
October – The Grass Garden and Davis Alpine House, and also the Salvia Collection The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew can be a confusing place. The big attractions such as the Palm House, the Great Broad...
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Bodnant Garden – Suburbia Writ Large
The Laburnum Arch The many underwhelming gardens I have visited find themselves banished to the back corners of my mind. Some gardens, like Bodnant, refuse to go there yet irritate me so much that I...
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Kew 5 – The Temperate House: Restored to Glory
The Main Glass House with the Chihuly Glass Sculpture ‘Temperate House Persians’ For as long as I can remember, Kew’s Temperate House has been its ugly duckling. Botanical gardens have to move with...
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Polesden Lacey: The Munificence of the Beerage
View from the South Lawn Gardens are so often an expression of their owner’s character, so what would the garden be like of someone Cecil Beaton described as ‘a galumping, greedy, snobbish old toad’...
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Powis Castle Gardens – Hobbled by its History
Powis’s Exuberant Planting Against the Backdrop of the Castle Powis is one of the most spectacular and best planted gardens of Britain, and so why has it been hobbled by its history? Most great gardens...
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Bourton House Garden – Disconcerting Perfection
The Knot Garden Bourton House is idyllic, a handsome Georgian house of fine, golden Cotswold stone set in three acres of stylish and exemplary gardens; a smallish garden to a family house with not a...
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Hauser & Wirth Durslade Farm, Somerset – Cutting Edge in the Back of Beyond
Oudolf Field and Radic Pavilion I have always been a bit suspicious of the modern and contemporary art market. I can remember Alfred Taubman, the chairman of Sothebys, being imprisoned in the early...
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