Lord Carrington's Land Art Exhibition
What a splendid setting for an exhibition of Land Art. The Manor House at Bledlow is the family home of Lord Carrington. In 1969 Lord Carrington and his late wife, with the help of Robert Adam, began the restoration and redesign of the gardens, which surround the mid 17th manor house. After years of careful development, today there is a wealth of interest to be seen. It is a large beautifully maintained but tranquil garden, enclosed by many wonderful mature trees. The first to greet you is the magnificent Cedrus atlantica on the main lawn in front of the house
To the right of the front lawn is the walled garden providing vegetables all year round and at the centre of this garden is a gazebo supporting trellised posts planted with rambling roses. Apple trees are trained on spheres.
The rest of the garden is divided by hedges of Fagus sylvatica, Carpinus betulus and Taxus baccata. The north side of the House is dominated by four ornamental ponds and herbaceous border. Through the wrought iron gate leads to the Church Close garden, an undulating garden of mature shrubs and trees including various mahonia, hebes, viburnum and cornus with fairly new additions of Caragana arborescens ‘Lorbergii’ (the Siberian pea tree) and Cercis siliquastrum. Within this 2½ acres are most of Lord Carrington’s contemporary sculptures including Michael Cooper’s ‘Gorilla’, John Robinson’s ‘Immortality’ and Peter Randall Page’s ‘3 Fruits’. Sculptures breath new life into an area where sometimes plants struggle, they make you stop and think and they are something we easily remember after leaving the garden.
But gardens are always evolving, and there are continually new additions to the Manor. When I arrived Lord Carrington had just taken delivery of a rare epaulette tree, Pterostyrax hispida – it is a deciduous spreading tree with aromatic grey bark, bearing large panicles of bell shaped, white flowers in early summer. Unfortunately the delivery driver also dismantled the two entrance pillars and toppled the round stone balls to the ground.
Robert Adam has returned to Bledlow to help Lord Carrington create a new garden in memory of his wife, Lady Iona. The garden will contain many new roses climbing on ropes and a snail – local sculptor Michael Cooper has been commissioned to carve a snail out of Kilkenny limestone from Ireland, to be placed under the Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip tree).
In various corners of the garden on Sunday, 13 June, 2pm – 6pm, members of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon area of NAFAS will be displaying pieces of Land Art. It was during the late 60’s that a new art movement emerged by using materials which are left to change and erode under natural conditions. On both sides of the Atlantic artists were leaving the art galleries and taking their designs out into the landscape. This land art has been described as earth art, earthworks or environmental art and takes many shapes and forms. The artist Richard Long used stones and sticks arranged in circles and lines to create walks on roads and paths while Andy Goldsworthy worked with nature to produce sculptural work in the landscape. Many of his designs took merely a day to create but were soon washed or blown away. They were of a transitory nature, for example, his midsummer snowballs which were left to melt on a London street in 2000.
When the flower arranger creates a land art exhibit this is created using ’found items’ in their natural environment. Lines, patterns shapes and forms already existing in nature are taken as an inspiration, although there may not be an overall theme. Solid structures such as a lake, a sculpture or a tree with a hollow base may inspire too. One of the most important considerations when creating these sorts of designs is to ask if it will withstand the elements – rain, wind and sun. Two leading floral artists, Irene Manson and Jane Rowton Lee have been appointed to design the exhibits to complement the vast array of Lord Carrington’s contemporary sculptures within the garden.