Category: Uncategorized
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Creative writing workshops about gardens and the landscape, plus some walks and weeks away…
I’m delighted to tell you that my latest book, Digging Up Paradise is now available for pre-order. It will come out ‘properly’ at the beginning of June, but in the meantime here are some courses and events which may be of interest: 3rd and 8th June – Explore the lost gardens of the Strand with…
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Poetry in Westgate Gardens, Canterbury – a competition
I’m delighted to be judging the competition to find three poems to display in the underpass in the Westgate gardens in Canterbury. You have until MAY 15TH to send in your poems – there are two categories for under 18, and over 18, and poems should capture the spirit of Canterbury past and present; its…
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An Exciting Book Announcement!
I’m absolutely delighted to tell you I’ve just signed the contract for a book from this blog. DIGGING UP PARADISE: Potatoes, People and Poetry in the Garden of England will be published this year by the excellent Kent publishers, Cultured Llama, and is an armchair ‘tour’ with a map, descriptions and poetry inspired by twenty-five…
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‘Loveliest’ Leeds Castle
Leeds Castle – in Kent, not Yorkshire as some people apparently think – is justly proud of Lord Conway’s comment that it is the ‘loveliest castle in the whole world’. It’s origin dates from 1119, and has been the home to six queens – Eleanor of Castile, Margaret of France, Isabella of France, Anne of…
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The view from a hill – Octavia Hill, Toys Hill and Ide Hill
The Octavia Hill Centenary Hill is not so much a garden, but a walk involving three hills – Toys Hill, Ide Hill and the woman who connects the two – Octavia Hill. She was a social reformer and nature lover who left her house to the organization she founded – The National Trust, who still…
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A joyride in a paintbox – a walk round Winston Churchill’s Chartwell, Kent
Regular visitors here will know that there’s a form of time-travelling that can go on. Sometimes I’ll put up a post about a garden on the day I visit it, other times it will take months. This is because I really hope I can write something original for each garden I visit, and sometimes thoughts…
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Eating William Morris’s Potatoes – Red House, Bexleyheath
I nearly turned back when I got to the suburban street marked as the address for Red House because it was hard to imagine William Morris, who once proclaimed that we should have nothing in our houses that were not beautiful or useful, commissioning his first ever home from architect, Philip Webb, here. Nothing against…
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Kent Life
Given that this website began in Kent – with Kent gardens – I’m very happy to be featured in Kent Life this month, talking about poetry and gardens…
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Acorns and shopping streets – Delville Wood, France
I’m aware that this is a blog for English gardens but on a recent visit to the site of the Battle of Delville Wood as part of a trip to the WW1 battlefields in France, I was surprised to see this: And so I kept looking: I found out later that these markers represent the…
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Autumn colour at Marle Place … by appointment
After my post on Marle Place, I’m happy to tell you that – although now officially closed – it may still be possible to visit. The owner, Lindel Williams, got in touch to say: “As you know we close this week end but the Autumn colour may well be rather good, if it is we…
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Ruins and personality at Great Comp
Great Comp garden, near Sevenoaks in Kent, is a remarkably personal garden, wrapped round a 17th century house. Dotted around the garden are the ruins which, by the time you spot the second one, you realise must be the creation of the same person who has created the rest of the garden. They offer an…
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Sculpture, sun-tattoos and the ‘art garden’ – Marle Place
This may well be the quickest garden-visit-to-post on here because I was in Marle Place gardens just this afternoon. And talking about speedy, look autumn is on its way. There’s a reason for putting this up now though. Marle Place shuts to the public on the 29th September so there is only just enough time…