I spent the middle part of the day at Benton End, the house which Odo Cross bought for Cedric Morris and Lett Haines, after Lucian Freud had burned down their School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham. The house is more atmospheric than I had expected, with Tudor bits at the back and their garden still semi-extant just under the surface of the lawns and snowdrops – Morris having been one of the great post-war plantsmen, known not just for his irises, his mentoring of Beth Chatto, but for his early interest in semi-wild planting:-

Very fine snowdrops:-