Postcard from Highgrove
As the Prince of Wales explains in the short video that you watch at the start of the tour of the gardens at Highgrove, one of his greatest pleasures is knowing that the garden is enjoyed by visitors. I'm entirely convinced, for a couple of reasons. The first is that as Prince of Wales, surely you are likely to get great pleasure by having panda and chips for breakfast, just because you can. Also, Highgrove is unsigned and difficult to find. To take a tour of the gardens, you send off for tickets and are sent a date, a time, and directions. A satnav will do you no good, instead, you navigate through the Cotswolds back roads in traditional fashion, with a map and keenly developed bickering skills until, at some seemingly random point, you pull off the road onto a drive.
It's here you think you've made a wrong turn, because you appear to be driving up a very ordinary drive. Thus it comes as something of a relief when you see the policeman. He is there to check your tickets, check your ID and presumably check that you are not a threat to national security, the monarchy, or the monarchy's flower beds.
Before your tour starts you are told that there is no recording at Highgrove. Anyone who has seen Alan Titmarsh's interview with HRH PoW probably wishes this rule had been applied sooner. No cameras or mobile 'phones are permitted. Given that Prince Harry had just that day graced the Internet with his crown jewels and that the ginger nutsack had, pardon the phrase, gone viral, we could understand the sensitivity. Then they explained that you were not even allowed to do sketches. This, I thought, was a little bit harsh.
The Prince explains in his video that he wanted to create a garden that feeds the soul and delights the eye. Certainly I felt my soul, and pockets, lighten as, for the first time in what seemed like a decade, I wandered around without a mobile, a camera or even a wallet (although you are encouraged to return to your car to retrieve the latter and then visit the shop at the end of the tour).
The garden at Highgrove is actually a number of differently themed gardens, separated by walls, or features of the landscape, or hedges. They are also the repository for many of the gifts that the PoW has been given over the years. Most of us, on receipt of a charmingly hideous ceramic knick-jack, would leave it on the doorstep of a charity shop like an unwanted baby in a Victorian novel, but the PoW does not have that option.
And he gets given a lot of crap. And it all goes in the garden.
And it's fascinating, cemented into walls, or paths, or garden structures are plaques or ornaments that he has been given. The is a fabulous 'wall of gifts' made up of carvings made by apprentice masons - it looks like a jigsaw church. And the are bronze busts of HRH in the garden. One might think that having bronze busts of yourself is a sign of egomania and it might be...if you kept them in the house. Busts of yourself in the house can only serve one useful purpose - somewhere to keep your hat. In a garden though, they are decorative and charming. Ironically, thanks to the attention of birds, they could actually use a hat.
The garden is a delight and the tour is clever, first teasingly showing you the private garden area right next to the house, through delightful and very effective iron gates, then taking you into it. After all the secrecy and security, once you are in the grounds you are essentially invited to wander around and touch as much as you want - just don't stray from the group or you will be shot and added to the compost heap.
There are delights and surprises for the eye and the walled garden, with fruit and herbs, feeds both the soul and the senses and, if my scrumping skills had been as well developed as they were in my youth, would have fed the stomach too.
I finished the tour with scented hands as a result of all my herb handling. This is a remarkable place and shows you what any gardener can do with some imagination, vast wealth and a dedicated gardening team. It is the quintessential English garden, down to the borrowing of ideas and of plants and artefacts from around the world to give the impression of being in another country, to the extent that the is a rather lovely Moorish garden near the house, complete with tinkly water feature.
And even if you do not like gardens, it's interesting to see, though not record, where all the gifts have gone and, if you have ever given HRH a gift, you may wish to go to check to see if it adorns a place of prominence, or a suitably shady nook.
For all the wealth and the privilege of the owner what comes through is a vision for an organic, sustainable garden (sustainable meaning in this case never throwing anything away and finding a use for everything) and incredible attention to detail, both from the garden's owner and the gardeners themselves, who toil away like elves in green polo shirts while the tours wander around them.
The guides are interesting too. Luckily, the Cotswolds has a fair proportion of posh ladies to draw on during the season when the garden is open to the public. If you do visit, my advice is to read up on your gardening facts, as they do love to tell tales of visitors who don't know a sheep from a shrub and in the true spirit of recycling the ignorance of today's group will form comic fodder for tomorrow.
As a garden, it's still a work in progress, although anyone who walks around the RHS show, especially the Spring show at Malvern, will see much that is familiar in style and planting. As a house Highgrove is interesting, on the one hand a three story substantial farmhouse, on the other hand not what you would expect as the residence of a future king (but just what you would expect if you were familiar with the Britannia) and as an experience, a fascinating opportunity to stroke the herbs of a member of the royal family.
Most impressive of all? We couldn't finish the cakes from the afternoon tea, which were promptly boxed up for us to take away. The urge to eBay was strong, the urge to finish them later with a cuppa stronger still.
It's here you think you've made a wrong turn, because you appear to be driving up a very ordinary drive. Thus it comes as something of a relief when you see the policeman. He is there to check your tickets, check your ID and presumably check that you are not a threat to national security, the monarchy, or the monarchy's flower beds.
Before your tour starts you are told that there is no recording at Highgrove. Anyone who has seen Alan Titmarsh's interview with HRH PoW probably wishes this rule had been applied sooner. No cameras or mobile 'phones are permitted. Given that Prince Harry had just that day graced the Internet with his crown jewels and that the ginger nutsack had, pardon the phrase, gone viral, we could understand the sensitivity. Then they explained that you were not even allowed to do sketches. This, I thought, was a little bit harsh.
The Prince explains in his video that he wanted to create a garden that feeds the soul and delights the eye. Certainly I felt my soul, and pockets, lighten as, for the first time in what seemed like a decade, I wandered around without a mobile, a camera or even a wallet (although you are encouraged to return to your car to retrieve the latter and then visit the shop at the end of the tour).
The garden at Highgrove is actually a number of differently themed gardens, separated by walls, or features of the landscape, or hedges. They are also the repository for many of the gifts that the PoW has been given over the years. Most of us, on receipt of a charmingly hideous ceramic knick-jack, would leave it on the doorstep of a charity shop like an unwanted baby in a Victorian novel, but the PoW does not have that option.
And he gets given a lot of crap. And it all goes in the garden.
And it's fascinating, cemented into walls, or paths, or garden structures are plaques or ornaments that he has been given. The is a fabulous 'wall of gifts' made up of carvings made by apprentice masons - it looks like a jigsaw church. And the are bronze busts of HRH in the garden. One might think that having bronze busts of yourself is a sign of egomania and it might be...if you kept them in the house. Busts of yourself in the house can only serve one useful purpose - somewhere to keep your hat. In a garden though, they are decorative and charming. Ironically, thanks to the attention of birds, they could actually use a hat.
The garden is a delight and the tour is clever, first teasingly showing you the private garden area right next to the house, through delightful and very effective iron gates, then taking you into it. After all the secrecy and security, once you are in the grounds you are essentially invited to wander around and touch as much as you want - just don't stray from the group or you will be shot and added to the compost heap.
There are delights and surprises for the eye and the walled garden, with fruit and herbs, feeds both the soul and the senses and, if my scrumping skills had been as well developed as they were in my youth, would have fed the stomach too.
I finished the tour with scented hands as a result of all my herb handling. This is a remarkable place and shows you what any gardener can do with some imagination, vast wealth and a dedicated gardening team. It is the quintessential English garden, down to the borrowing of ideas and of plants and artefacts from around the world to give the impression of being in another country, to the extent that the is a rather lovely Moorish garden near the house, complete with tinkly water feature.
And even if you do not like gardens, it's interesting to see, though not record, where all the gifts have gone and, if you have ever given HRH a gift, you may wish to go to check to see if it adorns a place of prominence, or a suitably shady nook.
For all the wealth and the privilege of the owner what comes through is a vision for an organic, sustainable garden (sustainable meaning in this case never throwing anything away and finding a use for everything) and incredible attention to detail, both from the garden's owner and the gardeners themselves, who toil away like elves in green polo shirts while the tours wander around them.
The guides are interesting too. Luckily, the Cotswolds has a fair proportion of posh ladies to draw on during the season when the garden is open to the public. If you do visit, my advice is to read up on your gardening facts, as they do love to tell tales of visitors who don't know a sheep from a shrub and in the true spirit of recycling the ignorance of today's group will form comic fodder for tomorrow.
As a garden, it's still a work in progress, although anyone who walks around the RHS show, especially the Spring show at Malvern, will see much that is familiar in style and planting. As a house Highgrove is interesting, on the one hand a three story substantial farmhouse, on the other hand not what you would expect as the residence of a future king (but just what you would expect if you were familiar with the Britannia) and as an experience, a fascinating opportunity to stroke the herbs of a member of the royal family.
Most impressive of all? We couldn't finish the cakes from the afternoon tea, which were promptly boxed up for us to take away. The urge to eBay was strong, the urge to finish them later with a cuppa stronger still.
Labels: England, Gardening, Gardens, Highgrove, Prince of Wales, Royalty
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