Rainy Day Gardens

When I visited the deer park at Knole last summer, I noted with some sense of regret that the walled gardens at the property are open on Tuesdays only over the late spring and summer. I love an historic garden, but when does one ever have a free Tuesday when one works full time in an office? If you have a Tuesday off, it's generally because you also happen to be abroad as part of a longer break.

However, I was delighted to discover that my new place of work has a few extra bonus days off each year in additional to the usual ones, one of which is the Tuesday following the late May Bank Holiday. So I knew immediately what I was going to do with my day, come rain or shine. And boy, did it rain! But that's okay, because I had my brand new wellies.

My new wellies were just one part of my incredibly generous parting gift from my former workmates. One of my friends took note of my comment that I was in need of a pair of fit, respectable, good wellies. My new job is likely to require walking around a fair few churchyards, which can be very wet underfoot, so it was thought that furnishing me with wellies would be a good idea for seeing me off on my way.

So when I knew what the weather was to be for my Knole visit, I dressed from the wellies up. I went with a fitted green jacket (part of a 1940s suit) and shirt for a respectable country look, but coupled with a denim skirt to keep it from being too dressy for a muddy, puddly garden romp.

And I had a delightful time in the garden in the rain. Yes, I couldn't sit down and enjoy a book or anything like that but I marched through with my wellies and umbrellas, unhindered. What a wonderful, extensive gardens, full of many hidden treats within the 'Wilderness' and all around.

Because my wander around the gardens was naturally slightly inhibited by the weather, I also had plenty of time to explore the house, which I missed on my last visit as I was too busy enjoying the fine summery day. No photography was allowed inside, but sometimes that's kind of preferable, because you can just look without feeling as though you have to capture...

The house was itself wonderful, and I would definitely recommend a visit. The spaces were amazing, the stories fascinating and the collection full of fabulous and exquisite objects, furniture and paintings. I enjoyed hearing about the Spangle Bedroom, which takes its name from a bed with curtains which, in their Elizabethan heyday, would have shimmered and sparkled with the firelight reflecting off the thousands of spangles or sequins that formed part of the decorative embroidery.

The Spangle Bed (Image source: Knole Conservation Team Blog)

So, all up, a rather satisfying day of rainy day walking, historic interiors... and a perfectly warm and delicious toasted cheese and bacon bagel bought at a bargain price from a local bagel shop on the way back to the station... Bliss!

Go Right at Buckingham Palace...

It was a beautiful day in London today for Bank Holiday Sunday (though tomorrow's forecast is not so ideal... Never mind!). In an appropriately leisurely fashion, I therefore took the time to smell the roses in Hyde Park. To get there, I hopped on my trusty bicycle. As I was looking up my route from Islington before I headed off, I was saying the instructions out loud to help them stick in my head. And as I did so, I was struck how much it sounded like something from a children's book about London...

"Along the Strand and through Trafalgar Square...

... up The Mall (through Admiralty Arch)...

... then right at Buckingham Palace..."

I love how a commute through London can be so iconic and take in such sites and more without even trying!

Although it was a perfect day to be outside, I spent a few hours in the V&A before getting to Hyde Park. It's been quite some time since I was last there and I've been looking for an opportunity to get there for the past few weeks. It didn't seem like a waste to be inside a museum, especially after my lovely cycle (it's so much more relaxed cycling on a weekend then during weekday rush hour!).

Some of the contemporary display in the silver gallery at the V&A

But after a couple of hours, the sunshine was calling me, so I headed back out and to Hyde Park. I was enticed into the rose gardens there, where I stopped to stroll, admire and inhale... and to take some pictures.

Pink roses for my pink outfit!

Hope that you've all had a lovely weekend, and that those in the UK who get a bonus day off tomorrow have a good one.

Kew Garden Florals

It's been quite a while since my last Kew visit. So with the long weekend, good weather, and my determination to do some proper, carefree unwinding following the hectic end days of my long-term job, it seemed like a good idea to head out there today.

This is what I saw, and this is what I wore. Flowers and colours in abundance, in both instances! I wore tulips, thinking it was about the right time for them but I saw very few of them in fact, and think I may have been a tad late in my timing. Oh well, there were plenty of other things to see...

A plane caught my attention... One of the few problems with Kew is the massive number of loud, loud planes
that go over. It somewhat interrupts the sound of leaves rustling in breeze...

Making friends with trees again

Bumble bee! I love bees!

Dress: Beyond Retro
Jacket: Cow (Sheffield branch)
Belt: Beyond Retro
Shoes: Jones Bootmaker
Bracelet: Recent gift from a friend
Earrings (little red beads that are barely visible!): market in Nottingham

I photographed some of the last of the season's roses last year... and this is one of the
first of this year

Statue entitled 'A Sower'

Some ironwork photographed once before, but now with leaves on the tree and a
brighter background

Cricket on Kew Green after the Gardens

Happy Sunday! And happy May Bank Holiday to those other lucky people who get the day off.

Fashion & Gardens

The other weekend, I went along to the Garden Museum to see the current exhibition, Fashion & Gardens: Spring/Summer - Autumn/Winter. The exhibition traced the connections between garden styles and clothes fashion from the sixteenth century through to the modern day. As the blurb on the Garden Museum's website explains, 'Both gardens and dress aim to bring a sense of occasion to a season. Midsummer is more authentic if passed among organza and roses; russet velvet and gold-licked chrysanthemums concentrate our senses that autumn has arrived.' If you've followed either my posting of monthly personifications or my visits to Kew, you won't be surprised to hear that this exhibition immediately grabbed my attention.

Artwork by Rebecca Louise Law... If only I had a space in which to hang hundreds
of dried flowers...

It was a very... shall we say 'compact' exhibition but it was fascinating and I feel that I came out having learnt a whole lot more than I knew when I went in. And the advantage of smaller exhibitions is that you ultimately take more time to appreciate each item.

So what did I learn? I learnt about the correlation between the patterns in Elizabethan knotwork gardens and the patterns on their clothing and upholstery, demonstrated in the exhibition with the display of exquisite embroidery. I also learnt that, while floral patterns on fabrics were popular throughout much of the eighteenth century, there was a transition from sparser patterns to busier, more clustered patterns. So if I see someone in a period drama set in the 1780s, wearing a lightly patterned floral dress, I can now titter knowingly about how deeply unfashionable they are.

One of the things that I found particularly interesting, as someone quite affected by colours, was learning how trends in colours changed both in the fashion world and in gardens. The introduction of chemical (rather than plant-derived, natural) dyes made all sorts of rich, vibrant colours possible in the nineteenth century. As methods improved, production increased and prices came down, these bright colours entered the middle-class and lower-class markets. At the same time, the numerous new public gardens established in cities to provide the general public with green spaces within dense urban areas in the mid-nineteenth century were frequently planted with bright, hardy flowers. As a result, there was a backlash, and the upper classes made a return to soft, subtle colours for their clothes, achieved with natural, high quality dyes, while their private gardens and preferred flowers followed suit.

'None of those obvious, bright colours for us, thank you very much. We're ladies.'
Miss Martineau's Garden, John Sant, 1873 (Image source)

Also interesting was the development of garden fashions and country style, in which, as the exhibition proudly pointed out, the Brits lead the world (partly because of our love of gardens, partly because of our rubbish weather and the waterproof nature of garden and country wear, from Burberry macs, through Barbour waxed jackets, to Hunter wellies). This 'dressed down' style, which was still posh enough to differentiate the gentlemen from the labouring gardeners, began in the eighteenth century as a result of trends for connecting with nature, albeit in a highly controlled manner. Think the 'natural' but in reality highly structured Picturesque gardens with, for instance, cattle forming part of the vista from your French windows, but nicely kept at bay with a ha-ha so that they didn't actually come up and nibble and defecate on your carefully maintained lawn... Along with all this a slightly more casual 'outdoor' clothing style was adopted by the upper classes, to allow them to get down and dirty with a spot of poking around in the garden.

Kate Middleton effortlessly bringing the 'country chic' look
(Image source)

Even the French admit defeat by the Brits on the mac style front
(Image source)

Following the Fashion & Gardens exhibition, I had a wander around the rest of the museum. I've been here for talks and into the garden when the museum was closed for renovation a few years ago, but never properly explored the permanent collection. Again, it's small, but lovely. 

Scarecrow in cute cat form, c.1920s

'Seeds for sale'

The carrots are only intermediate...

... but the rhubarb is GIANT!

But they both pale in comparison to this prize tomato

The museum is located in a disused church, and on the way out of the building I noticed the memorial below in the entrance porch. Unfortunately, the bottom of it was covered up but I was suitably intrigued - 'killed by thunder and lightning'? At the tender age of 34? There's got to be more to that story, surely?

To the memory of William Bacon
of the Salt Office, London, Gent.
who was killed by thunder & lightning
at his window July 12th 1787
Aged 34 years