The English weather never ceases to surprise.
Wet and windy Saturday, dull and over cast all Sunday morning, white cloud and sunny intervals in the afternoon, followed by another downpour in the evening. Which all-in-all meant that the open gardens, (2-6 pm) were saved from being a washout and it was actually quite pleasant.
I had promised to go to my friends’ open garden, in a village near Cheltenham, and on the way I planned a stop, about half-way to their house, at Astall Manor’s, On Form Sculpture. What a treat, though a treat which wasn’t cheap.
The setting is glorious, the sculpture various and wonderful and all the while I wished I could have arranged to have a companion with me to share my ooohs and ahhhs!
However Cycloman was out on his bike and the boys revising.
The hollow of a marble sculpture, filled with rain and decorated with petals
presumably by some visiting child with an eye for colour.
Photo competition Water
Afterwards I went to see a few more gardens on a smaller, more attainable scale!
Boadicea's Chariot 
I looked at the site out of curiosity. Many things it may be but a garden is not one of them!
I suppose a lot of these old houses can no longer afford the gardening help required and turn to this sort of thing out of economic necessity. I presume they charge not only admission to the public but also to the artists for the right to display?
Birmingham Botanic Gardens have too much of this type of thing too. It seems to be a modern trend aided and abetted by the Chelsea Flower Show which has descended into a competition amongst architects with a few wild flowers thrown in.
I find messy looking ‘wild flower’ meadows full of totally improbable/impossible mixes of plants from non related habitats an embarrassment to say the least. All it actually reveals is either the paucity of botanical knowledge of the so called designers or the idiots who profess to admire it all, or both.
It is many decades since botany was an available A Level and so many people live in cities/towns/suburbs, the countryside has become so degraded with the use of herbicides that there are virtually no people left who actually know what a wild flower meadow actually looks like.
Horticulturalists are becoming like dragon’s teeth. All in all the lack of education leaves people unable to discriminate between impossible pastiche and the real thing, it really has become particularly bad in the UK. Interestingly the Germans, being a rather anal bunch have not let it go like this in horticulture, the only definitive texts on the subject are all by krauts! (Needless to say the yanks wouldn’t know what one was talking about anyway!!)
Most of the statuary looks pretty boring too, very mechanical, imitative and not very creative.
But I suppose you can’t blame them for trying to turn a buck any way they can.
PS Just looked at the price list for a laugh.
They must see them coming!
Thanks for eloquent rant, Christina.
I disagree – it is a fantastic garden, with little areas of un-mown grass, some of it seeded through with various flowers, acting as a backdrop to some of the sculptures. There are large areas of more formal garden with yew and box and lots of roses, among other things.
It smelt divine.
“The gardens were designed by I & J Bannerman in 1998. Their aim was to allow the garden to flow into the Windrush Valley landscape beyond it. The gardens blend form and freedom, open views and secret spaces. Long tranquil walks bordered with sharp wedges of yew, vast beeches enclosing a hidden lake, orchards sloping down to the mill stream, stone tubs overgrown with roses and a formal box-bordered parterre provide a quintessentially English setting for fine art.”
I also disagree with Christina on this matter. I think there is a great deal of snobbery, and not enough realism attached to garden design.
My theory is, that it’s my space and I should feel free to do what I want. I don’t have room to incorporate all these features and I’m not sure that I would want to own the art, but it can be pleasing.
I love the last picture, Nym.
PS. There is probably a great deal of ignorance too, to be fair, but still, it is one’s own space.
Thanks Ara. I loved the way the water had obviously been played with by one of the smaller visitors. That was another thing I liked about the garden… it was a place to be played in – a huge tree house, a hut with a built in stove by the waters edge, a gypsy caravan (obviously being used by the kids, as the bed was made up) a swimming pool and a tennis court.
I like multi-tasking gardens, Nym.
Very little of the formal gardens actually show on their site.
Each to his own and one always has the right not to purchase an entrance ticket.
I personally do not like the modern trends in garden design, too much hard landscape, too much kitsch and kuch, generally overloaded with ‘features’ that destroy the very raison d’etre of a garden, to supply serenity.
A private garden may well have a play area but really does one wish to open such to the general public?
P your no 3, my point exactly! (various flowers!)
A, No 5 comment is strangely irrational, currently the snobbery is a supposed realism! How long since you studied the Chelsea designs?
Actually, Tina you have a point. I detest most of the Chelsea designs; they are not in the slightest bit realistic, but they are modern.
Re 10 No, but they purport to be realistic, hence my comments on botany.
I think you are both too quick to jump and have unwittingly reinforced my points.
Is Botany really no longer available as an A level? This is dreadful.
Don’t disagree, Tina with your #11.
Sheona.
I was never given botany as an option at A level, but things have obviously changed and then changed again.
Since I know nothing about botany, I can’t comment on the grounds. But I wouldn’t pay to look at the ‘sculpture’. It really doesn’t ‘sing’ to my ‘soul’!
However, I do think your last photo is excellent. 🙂
Most kids these days get offered Science in one or two modules, a few schools offer Physics, Chemistry and Biology as separate subjects. I know of none that divide Biology into Zoology and Botany. Haven’t done for a couple of decades plus!
The Biology exam does contain elements of Botany but they are all this very modern biochemical approach and DNA stuff.
Most students are hard put to name the constituent parts of plants let alone families, genera or the Linnean classification.
If you can’t identify plants or don’t know how to then you have absolutely no hope of knowing the properties of such and their habitats, therefore no knowledge of what and what will not grow together.
Hence the ability of ‘designers’ to bung together any old mixture that looks ‘pretty’ and call it a wild flower meadow.
As usual, part of the great dumbing down of the great British public.
How many people own a decent flora these days?
And know how to use it properly?
Not very many!
Nym, I’m afraid I find such gardens and displays worthy of HC Andersen’s ‘new clothes’ status. Isn’t it ooh, etc.? Akshully no. Despite having a talented artist wife, I can’t see the point of combining boring sculptures with half-arsed gardens. The amateurish indoor display tends to confirm my point. Sorry.
Truely. 🙂
Whatever. I had a lovely afternoon 🙂