Tea at Trianon: An Effortlessly Romantic English Country Garden

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

An Effortlessly Romantic English Country Garden

From Country Life:

Stopping spraying and allowing plants to self-seed was the first step in the gradual and brilliant reinvention of the walled garden at Serge Hill, Hertfordshire, the home of Kate Stuart-Smith. Non Morris paid a visit; photographs by Jason Ingram.

When one thinks of the garden at Serge Hill, what comes to mind is a handsome, white-painted Regency villa, its generous windows and comfortable verandah looking down over rolling Hertfordshire parkland — these days, hazy with long grass. A trio of rocking chairs nestled under a spreading strawberry tree create a sense of comfort, everything is settled and calm.

And then there is the Walled Garden at the side of the house. Nothing prepares the visitor for the scented, surging, fairy-tale profusion they have entered. Everyone gasps as they begin their journey along one of its staggeringly beautiful garden paths. You are in a shimmering painting of pale mauve, dark purple, electric green and stately, sky-rocketing whites and yellows. Who has seen mullein used in this way before: a heady upward-dashing cocktail of slender white Verbascum chaixii, ghostly V. lychnitis and great yellow candelabras of the giant mullein, V. bombyciferum ‘Arctic Summer’?

Serge Hill is home to Kate Stuart-Smith and her husband, David Docherty. It is where Ms Stuart-Smith was brought up with her five siblings, one of whom — the internationally renowned landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith — lives next door in a handsome converted barn surrounded by another remarkable garden. (Read more.)