Gertrude Jekyll was trained as an artist – presumably a fine artist – at the National School of Art in South Kensington – what became the Royal College of Art.  She could obviously turn her hand to anything, including tiles:-

Ornament set into the door into her workroom:-

And a floor in a shed in the garden:-

The upstairs long gallery is lined with cupboards which were full of her collection of textiles, many of which she gave to the V&A including a moth-eaten, Italian peasant cap.

A damp expedition to Munstead Wood, the house which Lutyens designed for Gertrude Jekyll between 1895, following the death of her mother, and 1897, when she moved in.

The exterior of the house is extremely well preserved, as are the surroundings, including 11 acres of woodland to the south.

This is the house from the west:-

And from the south-west:-

The north view of the wing which held her workshop:-

And the internal courtyard on the north front:-

After Jekyll died in 1932, it was inherited by her nephew, Francis Jekyll, who wrote her biography.  It was sold in 1948, but was acquired in 1968 by Sir Robert and Lady Clark who looked after it well, restoring part of Jekyll’s garden, following its original planting.  Then it was acquired by the National Trust in June 2023 by private treaty sale.

Now the question is what to do in terms of public access.  It’s obviously far from straightforward as it’s approached down a rough, muddy lane.

It’s highly atmospheric – a monument to Jekyll’s very various creativity, quite apart from her contribution to the history of gardening:-

I went to the new Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration yesterday, an impressive new set-up in the old buildings of the New River Water Company in Islington.  Opens Friday.

The buildings are hard to photograph and maybe more impressive inside than out:-

Walking down to Farringdon, I got an unexpected view of St. Paul’s:-

Over the last week, I have been hugely admiring the Gentle Author’s posts of photographs taken by John Claridge, recently deceased, of the east end where he was brought up.

This morning, he has posted his photographs of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry which convey its grainy aura and the melancholy of what has been lost and allowed to decay:

We went to an event to celebrate the replanting and revitalisation of the Benton End garden. 

It is remarkable what a year can do. 

New paths, new benches, new planting, a mass of poppies, which Cedric Morris somehow bleached:-

It is a remarkable achievement on the part of the Head Gardener, James Horner, and everyone else involved.

So, the question is: how far was Lord Burlington interested in issues of harmonic composition ?

I think the answer is likely to be, quite a lot.

His mother, Lady Juliana, was a supporter of opera, is likely to have attended the performance of Scarlatti’s Pyrrho & Demetrio at the Haymarket Theatre and is assumed to have been responsible for the commission to Pellegrini and Marco Ricci to do paintings for the walls of Burlington House (Burlington himself was only 15 in 1709). In 1712, Handel was given lodgings in Burlington House, so Burlington would have known him when he was at an impressionable age. On 17 May 1714, Burlington left London on the Grand Tour and, on his first Grand Tour, he was at least as interested in music as architecture – renting harpsichords for musical performances in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Paris, and attending the opera in Florence and Rome. He came back with three musicians, Filippo Amadei and the brothers Pietro and Prospero Castrucci, as part of his entourage. He also brought back 878 trunks and crates containing works of art.

So, when he later developed an interest in architecture, it is more than likely that he would have been interested in the relationship between music and architecture

I walked from Hammersmith to Chiswick – a good walk, past Kelmscott House and Hammersmith Mall and then through the churchyard of St. Nicholas and Hogarth’s tomb:-

The façade of Chiswick is always impressive:-

I was there to discuss Lord Burlington’s interest in harmonic composition….

We had supper in the Portrait Restaurant after going to the National Gallery’s wonderful Zurburán exhibition.  I had no idea that the Portrait Restaurant is now open in the evenings, which must be one of London’s best kept secrets. 

It’s as beautiful as ever – such an amazing view down Whitehall and, at least from where I was sitting, almost no tower blocks.

Just Nelson:-

Following my aunt’s funeral, I have been sent some family photographs, always helpful in getting a sense of my mother’s family, how she was brought up – still fairly Edwardian; who they were; the family’s relationships.

My mother is on the left, her older sister, Mary, on the right:-

Here they are with my grandmother and their younger brother, John:-

Here is my uncle John as a youth. He was head boy:-

This is of my grandfather with his second wife, Ethel Moore, who was a Boston philanthropist.  I have never seen a photograph of her before.  She died shortly after their wedding:-

The next one is intriguing. Following my grandmother’s death in Anglesey (I have never managed to locate her grave), my aunt Mary looked after my grandfather. Here they are on the way to church:-

And here’s the next generation, including me, at an occasion which, not surprisingly, I don’t remember:-

Some good street detailing:-

And graphics:-