a garden visit

We went to see the garden at Boxted Mill, which was open in aid of the National Art Fund.  The flier promised a riverside walk with daffodils, plus tea and cake, in the beautiful setting of the Dedham vale, which all sounded jolly nice.  We had a little difficulty navigating the last stretch along tiny lanes, as my car doesn't have a Sat Nav, and the Systems Administrator's hand held Garmin kept changing its mind about the route it wanted us to take, but we got there, guessed correctly that the collection of cars parked in a field were something to do with the open garden, and sat in the car for five minutes to let the hailstorm pass.

The SA's researches on Google before we set out had led to a discussion forum about the porterage rights of canooists at Boxted Mill.  There seemed to have been some difficulties and disagreements with the landowners in the past.  My search had come up with a page on the website of the Dedham Vale Society complaining about an electricity pole at Boxted Mill which apparently dominated (and ruined) the appearance of the landscape.  Boxted Mill was clearly a contentious place.  As we walked back over the bridge from the car park (or field) to the mill we got a fine view of the electricity pole, which is spectacularly ugly, but only visible from limited vantage points.  (The road bridge was built in 1900, and before that there wasn't one, just a foot bridge.  Tow horses had to cross the Stour twice in the course of passing the mill.  Those are my two bits of local history).

The garden walk did indeed take us along the banks of the Stour, and there were lots of daffodils, growing in lush grass.  Some clumps were labelled, and few of them were names I recognised.  I'm not a daffodil buff, but my guess is that quite a few of them aren't currently available for sale, or not easily.  Some had gone over already, but many hadn't, and it was a good display.  Apart from the daffodils there were flowering trees, cherries, crab apples and Amelanchier, many labelled which is always a bonus, a couple of nice Acer griseum, and some recently planted Magnolia and other shrubs, all carefully mulched and fenced to protect against rabbits and other marauders.  All were set among grass, which was left to grow long and already richly mixed with nettles and cow parsley.  Many of the trees showed evidence of past careful pruning and shaping, and some had rambling roses trained up them which were actually going up them, unlike my 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' which always wants to go equally in all directions.  I should say that a high level of horticultural skill and effort had gone into producing such an insouciant air of naturalness.

There was evidence of the strained relationship with the canooing fraternity in the form of notices indicating where they were supposed to enter and leave the river above and below the mill race, and instructing them that they must travel straight on through, and not stop to picnic, or wander about the garden.  These were supplemented by several notices reiterating that it was a private garden and requesting visitors not to use it as a public lavatory.  When we bought our house, one of the things we liked about the position was that it didn't lie on or even near any public right of way.  It must be  very nice to paddle the length of the Stour, and lots of people do, and should be allowed to, but it must be a pain to have them tramping through your garden, let alone relieving themselves in it.

The mill race itself was rather alarming, I thought, with the water rushing over the sill.  We presumed that the house owners must have a close working relationship with the environment agency, and the mill race is all very carefully designed, but there is something frightening about the power and force of water.  The mill itself has gone (there is a very spraunchy house with Gothick windows and a lovely conservatory, and a couple of the kind of curved bow window that builders dread having to repair), but the Tate has a painting of a mill building by John Nash dating from 1962.

The view up the river and across the valley, grazed by white and brown cattle, was pure Constable, and the field next to the garden was occupied by some Jacob sheep, which alternated between grazing and marching about as if they had a secret purpose.  They had dark brown fleeces and white faces, and little white legs twinkling rather comically under the great round mass of brown wool.  Some had horns, but some didn't.  There were two white sheep, one white faced and one black, which held themselves slightly apart from the Jacobs.

The big architectural treat of the day was the waterworks just up the road.  We glimpsed this through a hedge on the way there, but I had another car on my tail, and we gawped as much as we could on the way home, but it was mostly surrounded by a very solid fence.  The waterworks was a piece of unabashed Modernism, presumably interwar, with peeling white paint blowing in the wind.  It was an image straight out of the RA's Building the Revolution.  The smaller buildings scattered around the site (pump houses? chemical stores?) were in the same style.  It would have made the perfect set for a scene in a spy thriller.  When I got home I spent some time trying to find out more about it, but without success.  The whole site must surely be listed, as it's an extraordinary set of industrial architecture to have survived anywhere, let alone in the rural Dedham Vale (I originally said Suffolk, but thinking about it the waterworks must be on the Essex side of the border).  I wish they had an open day.  I'd love to go and have a proper look.

the National Art Fund

I have started trying to arrange a trip with my mother to the Royal Academy's exhibition of large and recent landscapes by David Hockney.  It has crystallised my feeling that it is not worthwhile her renewing my annual birthday present subscription, as once again advance booking is required, even for Friends.  Since she gave me the sub three years ago the RA has unilaterally altered the terms and conditions, by limiting my guests to family members (undefined, unenforceable, unenforced) and jacking up the annual cost to a hundred quid (or £90 by direct debit).  Their website nowadays says 'free entry to all RA exhibitions' which is true, in that Friends don't pay when they book tickets, but when you are travelling up from the country (40 minute rail delays this morning due to signalling problems at Ilford) a pre-booked entry time is a nuisance.  It means we have to build slack into the timetable before our slot in case the trains are late, which will leave us wandering around the west end for an hour or so in February if they're not, or else forego lunch if there are delays.  It used to be that you just waved your card and went in, even for popular exhibitions like Van Gogh.

My replacement is already lined up, as my National Art Pass has arrived.  For fifty quid (reduced to £37.50 in the first year if you pay by direct debit) I have got a card giving me free entry into some museums and galleries I should like to visit, and half price admission to exhibitions at others.  In London it gets me into the Courtauld, a gallery I adore and visit regularly, and the Garden Museum, which I'm partial to (provided they are covering design or history and not community vegetable growing).  It will also get me free into several places I've thought about visiting and not got round to it, including The Handel House Museum, Leighton House and Eltham Palace.  I get half price entry to exhibitions at The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Imperial War Museum.  These are all fine institutions I was planning on visiting this year (well, maybe not the Imperial War Museum.  I haven't looked yet to see what they've got on).  I checked on the Portrait Gallery website before buying the card, and the booking options for Lucien Freud did include buying a ticket with an Art Pass (as well as about seven other concessionary tickets) which allayed my concerns that the card might not work for exhibitions where I needed to book in advance.

There's an element of duplication with other memberships, as some National Trust properties are in the scheme, and I'm a member anyway.  Have been since I was four, courtesy of my parents.  So is the Tate, and I'm inclined to keep membership of that one going, as the members' room at Tate Modern is so nice, and being able to walk straight into the likes of the Rothko exhibition is worth a lot.

With the Art Pass came a book of participating venues through the UK.  All have benefited from art purchases funded by the scheme.  Some offer free access anyway, so holding an Art Pass doesn't confer any immediate benefit, but it looks a useful book.  Unless I had picked up a brochure somewhere, I wouldn't have known about the Cromer Museum (with Victorian fisherman's cottage and history of Cromer's incarnation as a seaside resort) or the Time and Tide museum at Great Yarmouth (about herring fishing) but they sound interesting.  It's the sort of booklet it will be worth taking along on holiday (not forgetting the tile gazetteer).

The proceeds raised by the Art Fund go to help museums and galleries pay for acquisitions.  I like the idea of helping to do that.  All in all it looks like a pound a week well spent, signing up for your National Art Pass.