As a precocious 17 year-old, intent on studying architecture, what could be more appropriate for me, than asking for a book on Mies van der Rohe as a school prize? I became a devotee, and when Mies died in 1969, … Continue reading
Late February and early March is the time to see winter gardens at their best, but a couple of sad borders of garish heathers, a bit of forsythia, a few camellias, and a sea of early daffodils don’t make a … Continue reading
Spring in England is pure delight, but nowhere more so than in Kent, the self-proclaimed ‘Garden of England’. My second career was as an restauranteur, and moving to Rye, on the Kent – Sussex border in spring, I was … Continue reading
Cliveden poses me with a dilemma – how much should I write about its colourful history, and how much about the garden itself? It would be impossible to write about Sissinghurst without Vita Sackville-West, or Great Dixter without Christopher … Continue reading
A few years ago, I visited Bilbao, and I found almost as much delight in seeing Jeff Koons’ subversive and witty giant ‘Puppy’, as I did from the setting of Frank Gehry’s famously sculptural Guggenheim Museum. Koons plumbs the … Continue reading
When I last visited Hestercombe 20 years ago, there was one great historical garden of note, the famous Lutyens garden, the Great Plat. Now there are two. The older one, the Georgian Landscape Garden was so badly overgrown that it … Continue reading