| Landscape art and artifice |
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Page 2 of 2 Claremont Landscape Gardens, Esher, SurreyJust off the Old Portsmouth Road near Esher are the house and gardens known as Claremont. The impressive mansion - designed by 'Capability' Brown for Clive of India - is now part of Claremont Fan Court School but is open to the public the first weekend of every month. In 1949 the gardens, the earliest surviving example of the English Landscape style, were given by the State to the National Trust for safekeeping, and in1975 a programme of restoration began.The first gardens were begun in 1715 and involved some of the great names in garden history. Historians note that each built on the work of the other, rather than destroying what his predecessor had created. Before the end of the century the splendour of Claremont was famed throughout Europe. Its features include a lake with an island and pavilion, a grotto, Belvedere, spectacular trees and numerous views and vistas. An immense and probably unique grass amphitheatre extends over three acres to give a view of the landscape spread out before it. We soon became regular visitors, with our pushchair, and we also discovered that in the winter months our dog was welcome on a lead (this policy is currently under review). Our walks inevitably began with a bag of bread at the lake's edge where huge carp churned up the shallow water in a feeding frenzy. One gentle tour around the lake, with a ten-minute breather sitting on the grass terraces of the amphitheatre was usually enough for both dog and child. Today there is a National Trust tea and gift shop as an added 'reward'. Claremont makes a wonderful backdrop to an event and for years the NT put on summer spectacles there called fêtes champêtres. I attended two of these evening spectacles where Trust members donned fancy dress to suit the historic theme, ate their evening picnics on the grass and enjoyed live music and fireworks from the island reflected dramatically in the lake. Last year's Beach Boys concert marked a departure and more summer concerts are planned in this magnificent setting. Claremont Landscape Garden, Old Portsmouth Road, Esher, tel: 01372 467806 or visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk . Open every day from 1 April to 29 October; closed Mondays. Admission (non-NT members) adults £4, children £2 or family £10. Royal Horticultural Society Garden, Wisley, SurreyAlthough not a 'landscape garden' this is the place to come to study and enjoy a stunning array of plants, trees and garden landscapes. However, try to find a space in the Wisley Gardens car park on a sunny spring Bank Holiday and you may wonder what you've let yourself in for. Some 700,000 visitors invade these 60 acres annually, yet the gardens - from woodland and vegetable patch to orchids and fruit trees - seem easily able to absorb the numbers.2004 is the Society's bicentenary, so it's an appropriate time to visit the gardens, which are ten minutes' drive from Painshill Park, along the A3. We have visited Wisley Gardens, as it is known, countless times over the years. It is a marvellous treat for young, elderly and disabled people alike. Our daughter, more interested years ago in the cafeteria's delicious flapjacks and feeding the crumbs to the ducks than in the landscape, is now about to study landscape management at university, so all those Sunday mornings seem to have sown a seed. Most visitors pause first at the main formal pool reflecting the faux-Tudor mansion. Built in 1916 from recycled bits of demolished country houses, it contains offices and an RHS laboratory. Here you can feed the swarming goldfish, and marvel at the dozens of varieties of waterlilies. From there, carry on towards the informal ponds or back through the walled garden to the woodland, alpine field and rockery. The latter is an entire hillside where water trickles down from level to level, ending in more ponds where monster carp lurk and frogs breed noisily in the early spring. The adjacent meadow is filled with jonquils and grape hyacinths and the woods with a sumptuous palette of blooming azaleas and rhododendrons alongside well-loved wildflowers. In summer a stroll between the giant mixed borders filled with thousands of flowering and foliage plants leads to the model gardens and glasshouses, or you can turn left to Battleston Hill. This area had been famous for its magnificent trees and its spring colour but had borne the brunt of the gales in 1987 with almost 80 per cent devastation. On television the next day, the gardener in charge could not hide his emotion as he showed the interviewer the destruction of years of work. A positive reassessment followed: what had been originally designed by man could be redesigned and regrown even better than before. Today Battleston Hill has been re-laid out for year-round interest with paths accessible to wheelchairs. (Today the gardens are completely accessible to pushchairs and wheelchairs and these, along with motorised buggies, are available to borrow at the entrance.) RHS Garden Wisley is off the A3 between Cobham and Guildford. Take the Guildford direction off the M25. Tel: 01483 224234 or visit www.rhs.org.uk The gardens are open every day except Christmas Day and admission is £7 for non-members, £5.50 each for groups of ten or more. There is a superb gift and bookshop and extensive plant centre. Seasonal events include autumn apple weekend, garden crafts and lectures. |
