The Laskett Garden is one of our favourite and most inspiring gardens to visit locally. It is known for being the most well renowned of formal gardens built in the last half a century, inspired by Italian renaissance gardens and Tudor and Stuart traditions. It was created upon a blank canvas beginning in 1974. What I find most striking about it is its use of sculpture, ornamentation and the feeling of drama and theatre. Its lively and emotive, enchanting and full of energy, joyous, humorous and sometimes sombre. The garden is split into ‘Rooms’ each with a story to tell, it’s a story of the life and marriage of its creators Sir Roy Strong and his late wife Julia who moved to Laskett lane after their marriage in 1971. The garden visit includes a wonderful audio guide in which Sir Roy describes the garden as “The visual expression of a very happy marriage” and that’s certainly evident throughout.
We have visited the gardens numerous times over the years in the summer months when Sir Roy still lived there, but this week we took a trip over to see the garden for a February snow drop event and what a beautiful time we had! The last time we visited, in 2021 Sir Roy Strong had just left Laskett lane and handed the gardens over to Perennial; a charity who’s mission is to help people working in horticulture through tough times. We were excited to see what Perennial had done with the garden as Sir Roy’s views on the garden were always that it should change and evolve, his belief was strong that a garden should not be ‘mummified’. In the audio guide he describes the axe as the gardeners best tool, describing cutting down 40 year old conifers which he had previously planted and later felt were making a part of the garden feel claustrophobic. The garden although completely packed with interest on all levels retains a feel of light, space and air, it has rhythm, it can be likened to a dance. He gave a substantial sum of money to Perennial that the garden should not ‘get stuck’…. After visiting today I can say it’s certainly not stuck, Perennials snowdrop event offered fresh and new surprises beginning right in the fountain court, over a hundred hellebore heads carefully gathered and placed bobbing in the fountain creating the most mesmerising display.
I should give you a very brief background about the garden, its creators and their inspirations. Though you can, if you wish, easily find out so much from the many of Sir Roy’s books and online. Sir Roy Strong is a well known author, he also became director of the national portrait gallery at the age of just 31 and at aged 38 moved to direct the V&A. The garden is peppered with artefacts and memorials which pay tribute to this time in his life, a time in which he obviously looks back on fondly. In fact, you will find in the garden a monument to commemorate his service to the arts; the Shakespeare award, an annual award given to a person in the uk considered to have made the biggest contribution to the arts in that year. His wife, Julia Trevelyan Omen who died in 2003 was a most celebrated tv, theatre, ballet and opera set designer. Her ballet design work included Swan lake and The nutcracker. She was the keen gardener of the two in the beginning but Sir Roy soon caught on and the life work of the two of them plays into the drama of the garden in such a rhythmic and poetic way. There is a good video on YouTube (‘The laskett: The influence of Italy in a late 20th century garden’) where Sir Roy talks about the garden and shows images of how the garden has developed over the years. He talks in depth about where the inspiration from the garden comes from. He talks about layouts of Italian gardens, clipping of the evergreens and personal influences such as the garden of film director Derek Jarman, on the shingle shore near Dungeness, Kent, ‘a garden of found objects.’ And the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, ‘Little Sparta’ up in Scotland, ‘a garden of philosophy and ideas.’ You can really see the influences of these gardens at The Laskett yet it is so completely unique. What I love about The Laskett, is that it has been completely built from scratch over a short space of time. You could easily be mistaken in thinking it’s a very old garden, it is encouraging to see what can be achieved in a life time and because of this it makes the garden feel (somewhat) relatable. The garden includes clipped box, beech, pleached limes, clipped yew hedging, topiary avenues, an orchard, a meandering walk through the serpentine garden, grand promenades, elaborate monuments, a large mound, heart felt memorials, water fountains, fancy urns, viewing platforms, obelisks and statues not forgetting the lion from the Houses of Parliament, a nymphaeum nonetheless and oh so much more!
It’s scatted with pet memorials and even entire ‘rooms’ dedicated to the memory of beloved pets such as Sir Muffs Parade. The Reverend wenceslas muff so called as he apparently resembled the engravings by artist Wenceslas Holler of the lady’s muff. In Sir Muffs parade, a large mound of earth known runs down one side of the room with Birch trees and spring bulbs on the left of the mound and a lawn and large boarder on the right. You can walk along the mound to view the garden from a different height. In Italian renaissance the mound or upper walk is called the Parnassus. There is a painting by Nicholas Poussin called Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus in which The nine Muses, goddesses of poetic inspiration and the creative arts, surround the god Apollo. If you sit on the bench opposite you can image the Parnassus as a stage and Sir Muff as star of the show entertaining any onlookers of his parade. At the top of this room is a very large clipped yew behind which sits the urn of Sir Muff himself. Again catching you by surprise after the excitement and drama of the Parnassus come the sobriety of this urn and its heartfelt inscriptions. The garden is truly a story of life and in it there is a time for every thing.
I can’t possibly begin to talk about all the rooms in the garden, and I definitely recommend you go. There are many rooms each with a different character. There is The Rose Garden, The Topiary Garden, an orchard with a Belvedere and a stately walk with pleached limes apparently twice the length of the long walk at Sittinghurst! Running alongside the long walk- named the Elizabeth Tudor avenue you catch glimpses through clipped hedging of a series of mature Witch Hazel trees in yellow. As you find your way over to them they are under planted with lilac and yellow crocuses and snowdrops, the yellow of the trees singing in perfect harmony with the lilac crocuses and snow drops densely planted under them.
But we really did save the best till last on this visit. As we approached The Colonnade I was almost moved to tears. Perennial had really made The Colonnade Court shine on this wonderful February day. The entablature of the Colonnade festooned with little glass vases very carefully strung up with three Snowdrops in each little vase all lovingly curated with individual species all labelled with handwritten parcel tags tied around the necks of the vases. It was a joy to be able to walk between them and enjoy the intricacies of the blooms from this new perspective. As if that wasn’t enough the bases of The Colonnade had been skilfully adorned with displays of hellebores. If there was a wedding to be held there it would have been picture perfect. What a testament to what can be achieved with British flowers in February!
