Remember way back in July, oh so many weeks ago when the days were longer and the drought was set in and I had returned from two days at the Garden Literary Festival held at Chatsworth this year. I have written about the Literary Festival and the talk by Tom Stuart Smith after which I said that going to Hepworth Wakefiel d to see his garden was now on 'the list' of must-visit gardens.
Gardens can languish for many years on the 'must visit' list as sometimes I am just never anywhere near. As luck would have it, I knew I would soon be travelling up that way to go to a Sew Different sewing retreat in Cleckheaton. Days where I can combine my loves of gardening and sewing are always treasured. I checked on the map and decided it would take thirty minutes to get from there to there and so it just had to be. My daughter was coming on the sewing retreat with me and she did not need convincing that this was a good plan.
We arrived in good time to enjoy the gardens and visit the gallery itself. Please note this was the priority order, if we only had ten minutes then the garden would have had those ten minutes. We sat and drank coffee in the garden to begin with. Just enjoying the peace and the colour and the movement of it. As we walked in I spotted that Tom Stuart Smith was there in the garden talking with the Cultural Gardener Katy Merryfield. 'That's him' I said to my daughter, 'that's the designer and the gardener who looks after this space'. 'Go say hello' my daughter says, 'go on, don't miss this chance'. Well it had to be done. I finished my coffee, wandered over and said I had been at the Beth Chatto Symposium the other day and had heard Tom speak and knew that Katy was also at the event and that I just wanted to say hello. I am not good at doing such things but I was glad I did.
Then off we went wandering around the garden (peer closely you can see Tom and Katy in the distance).
I love this garden. The sculptures work well within it.
The planting is of course superb. Both to look at en masse,
and for you to get transfixed by some of the plants themselves. Just look at this grass, it is stunning.
and you can view the garden from all sorts of angles from the gallery itself.
I did find it hard to stop looking out of the windows,
the windows really do connect the outside of the gallery to the inside.
We did spend some time in the gallery. I loved this picture. I loved it as a picture but also thought it would make a fabulous print on fabric.
and of course there are works in the gallery by Barbara Hepworth herself.
We then had to wend our way to Cleckheaton for our sewing weekend. I have to say I found this sculpture a little disturbing....
