Old Swan House Garden Open for the NGS June and July 2019

Old Swan House Garden What's New 2019

The summerhouse catches the eye from the shade of the orchard

Gardens are constantly evolving, even if the gardener does nothing more than cut the grass, but most gardeners make small incremental changes - which they hope will be improvements - each year. It's surprising how long it takes for new ideas to take root. Gardening is a slow process, and one can sometimes wake up with an idea fully formed, while others take years to come to the surface. Winter is usually the time when new ideas germinate, which then take root in spring as the light reinvigorates our imaginations.

The most obvious change that has been made to the garden at Old Swan House in 2019 is the painting of the summerhouse. It took a long time and many trial pots of paint to settle on the colour and even now it will probably be finished off with varnish sometime next year.

The summerhouse in its new livery - May 2019. It may get a varnish next year. 

Another change is the result of the old dead cherry tree beside the summerhouse coming down in a storm.  It had been completely covered by honeysuckle (Halliana) and its windage became too great. It has been replaced with an iron obelisk which the honeysuckle (after being cut back to the ground) is now scrambling up and which will again provide much-needed shade as well as scent when sitting outside the summerhouse.

The two new large box balls next to the summerhouse and the 'Halliana' honeysuckle scrambling to the top of the new obelisk 

More box balls have been added to the already crowded field in the shape of two large ones placed in terracotta urns either side of the summerhouse. These 'anchor' it and already look as if they have always been there.

The two new urns and their box balls on 'Venky's Terrace'

'Venky's Terrace' in the orchard has also had two large urns and box balls added to make it more of a room. The urns are of the beautiful pressed brick which unfortunately will no longer be available. A  Trachelospermum has been planted on the apple tree and trained up it. The terrace is now much better shaded than last year. 

The black bamboo behind the cut down hebe.

Less successful has been the chopping down of the hebe next to the wildflower area. It had become very leggy and overgrown but by flopping in front of the wildflowers, it provided a necessary air of mystery, which is now lacking. To counteract this, a black bamboo has been planted, but it will be some time before that is large enough to provide a barrier.

Another black bamboo has been planted beside the summerhouse, that one day will throw its plumes over the roof 

The black bamboo next to the summerhouse (it's almost invisible) 

The granite horse - 'Khan' - has been given boxes of alchemilla to froth at this feet 

Finally, at the other end of the garden, more box balls have been added to the pond area - one in the middle and another on the plinth at the side. I had hoped to put a small statue on the plinth to match the horse's head, but haven't yet found a suitable one. 

The box walk and the armillary sphere are well settled in

The line-up of box by the pond is now complete

Needless to say, there are more plans afoot, but nothing further is likely to be done this year.  

The Therapeutic Power of Gardens - Oliver Sacks

As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.


I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.


Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.


Oliver Sacks 'Why We Need Gardens,' found in Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales


See also my video for Macmillan 2018

Chelsea Flower Show 2019

The Facebook garden

For more photos, click here 

Favourite Gardens - Rotherfield Park

Rotherfield Park

Rotherfield Park was built from 1815 - 1821 and has been lived in by the Scott family since 1860. The current owners, James and Judy Scott and their gardeners have made much of tbe trees and avenues and the walled garden, using the landscape to the best effect and fashioning the old yew hedges into some of the most powerful shapes I have seen.

Yew buttress walk

One of the dramatic yew walks

The new amphitheatre designed by Kim Wilkie

Orchard and rose garden 

Beech walk with box urns

For more photos, click here

Penny Lawford 1944 - 2019

Penny in a nighdress and tiara

Penny entered our lives when she married my cousin Mike Lawford and came to live at West Tisted. They became frequent guests at our house Harrvestgate Farm, and their children, Sam and Dominic, were playmates of ours. Penny was full of life and fun, never stopped talking and was loved by all.

Will and Belin Martin's Summer Lunch 1980 includes Panny and Mile 

Mike worked with the well-known local farmer, Neil Fairey for a few years, after which they moved to Trumpington outside Cambridge and later to Orwell, and we saw less of them. But such was her warmth of personality and energy, the bond remained close, particularly with Prue.

Will Martin spoke most movingly at her thanksgiving service on 25th April 2019 and described her life and character in his own words as well as those of some of her childhood friends.   

How wonderful to see such a huge gathering of Penny’s family and friends here today. What a fitting tribute to Penny and her generosity of spirit, her laughter and love of life.

When Sam asked me, just a week ago, to say a few words about Penny I was very daunted at the prospect, but she and Dom furnished me with some of the letters and emails they have received since Penny’s death, and many of you will recognise your own words in what follows. The generosity of others has greatly lightened my burden today and helped me see those qualities in Penny which I might so easily have overlooked.

Penny had amazing resilience and this, with her fortitude in the face of adversity, was likely forged early in her life when, at the age of about six, not only did her parents split up but her mother developed polio and was in hospital for more than a year. Penny, who almost from birth had suffered from asthma and eczema due to an allergic reaction to a smallpox vaccination, went with her sister Annette, to live with her grandparents on the Cowdray Estate where her grandfather was a farm manager. A lot for one so young to take on and Penny might easily have allowed all this to overwhelm her, but in typical fashion she turned it into something positive. 

The words of her cousins Ian and Rick recall this time so well:

We spent most of our childhood summer holidays at Moor Farm on the Cowdray Estate and nearby was the Round Tower where Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dick lived (Penny’s grandparents). This strange eccentric building drew us, it was magnetic and, more magnetic than anything else, because it housed Annette and Penny our cousins. 

With them mischief blossomed. Clambering over the old castle ruins, guddling in the river Rother, playing polo minus the horses and cricket minus the rules filled our days, and always at the centre of the fun was Penny.

Penny was the inventive one, yet Penny the one who organised. She recognised when we were getting hungry in time to pester her grandmother to feed us and anticipated when we needed to get back to the farm in time for us not to miss dinner. 

When I think of Penny I think ‘laugh’. Penny’s laugh was her. I can hear her laugh now, hear her wheezing joyously as another childhood adventure culminated. I can hear her laugh as she suggests another scheme for kids’ fun…

My goodness, how that theme of fun ran on throughout her life. 

At about the age of 12 she and Annette, who had each lost a year of schooling whilst their mother was ill, were packed off to boarding school. It was a convent and Penny didn’t take kindly to the rules and discipline, so of course she rebelled by having fun – there are tales of shinning down drainpipes after lights-out,  at mealtimes flicking butter onto the ceiling behind the nuns’ backs and, as she got older, the inevitable and surreptitious smoking of Black Cat cigarettes with her chums.

History doesn’t relate at exactly what age Penny left school or indeed with what qualifications, but whatever they were I think we can be fairly sure that an O-level in English was not one of them. I have spoken to many of Penny’s friends in the past week and a recurring theme has been her hand-writing and spelling. Many of us can recall finding an envelope on the doorstep with the address seemingly written by a very drunk tarantula (how did the postman ever manage to decipher it?) Ah! one would think, a letter from Penny and you knew that you’d need at least ten minutes to unravel the wild hieroglyphics and mis-spellings of each page. But Penny really did try to get the spelling right and often a word would be crossed out two or three times only for her to give up at last and offer a very competent sketch of what she was trying to spell instead!

Penny’s post-school career was varied and took her to many places abroad – all seemingly fun-filled. From Paris where she shared a flat with Annette to Italy where she partied in San Remo at night and paid the bills by selling deckchair time on the beach during the day. And on to South Africa where she sold industrial dynamos – the mind boggles. 

Her one foray into business on her own account – running a franchise of Clover Leaf Ice Cream in Cape Town with a business partner ended badly with the partner skipping off with the cash leaving Penny holding the debts. Fortunately, her accountant gave her the best advice under the circumstances – go to the airport now and don’t come back to S Africa!

On return to England she began a stint as front-of-house manager at The Plough at Fen Ditton, and by all accounts was a huge asset to the establishment. The pub was a favourite with racing luminaries such as Willie Carson and Lester Piggott, as well as the actor Omar Sharif.  Often they would arrive unannounced, yet Penny always managed to find them the best table in the house – often persuading a reluctant chef to cook them their favourite desserts even though they weren’t on the menu that night.

Not long after Penny and Mike were married in the early 1970’s they moved to a farm in West Tisted in Hampshire and it’s from this time that Penny entered our lives. Belinda and I have happy memories of being surrounded by the new babies of both families, shared god-parenthood and endless parties at which Penny was always central to the fun. 

Our bliss was short-lived however as, just a few years later, Mike’s work took them to Trumpington. But happy visits to Cley Farm several times a year kept us in constant touch, with our children becoming life-long friends. I am sure that it was due to Penny’s determination that we always managed to remain close in spite of the geographical distance which separated us. 

In particular the deep and lasting friendship which she and Belinda shared (something men never quite manage to achieve in the same way) has been one of the constants of the last 45 years of my life and a source of joy to me.

It was at this time too that Penny developed her skill as an artist. Quite untrained, she taught herself the demanding skill of painting on silk which she also turned into a money-earner. Indeed many of those here today will have examples of her art on their walls and at least one member of today’s congregation is wearing a silk tie which Penny painted specially for him.

In 1989 came the move to a house of her own for the first time - Meadowcroft in Orwell. This gave Penny the chance to develop another, hitherto dormant, skill. Again with no formal training, but with much determined reading and research, she turned herself into a gardener of amazing talent and achievement. She designed and planted from scratch a most beautiful garden at Meadowcroft and maintained it immaculately. Her love and knowledge of gardening was profound and her eye for colour was unerring. She seemed to know instinctively where each plant would prosper. Her garden was the backdrop to so much fun, to so many parties as well as Sam and Tim’s wedding – and always at the centre of it, leading the dance, was Penny.

In 1999 the breakdown of her marriage brought the huge wrench of leaving Meadowcroft and her beloved garden, but Penny wouldn’t let this stand in her way. She moved to Orchard House close by and set about creating another but completely different garden. It is here that in many ways, although dogged by ill-health, she had her happiest days, thrilled by the advent of three grandchildren and happy to see Dom and Jean settled and married. She was determined to live in the face of pain and see her family grow up. Her deep and abiding love for her children shone out as did her huge engagement with everything that they did. 

And they responded in kind – Penny was so fortunate to have two such wonderful children as Sam and Dom and their devotion to her and care of her, especially by Sam, was exemplary.

Penny was indomitable. She had a wonderful warmth and sense of fun of which we all were so much the beneficiaries over the years: she was interested in all the trivia of the lives of others, and richly engaged with everything. It was a privilege to have been her friend, to have watched her fight against adversity, and to have been the recipient of her kindness. And above all to have shared so much fun with her – she was an extraordinary woman and how we all will miss her.

For more photos of Penny, see here
For photos of the funeral at St Andrew's, Orwell on 25th April 2019, go here (few are public)