Patricia Cleveland-Peck is impressed with this exhibition at the Garden Museum

The characters who made up the Bloomsbury Group continue to fascinate the public which is not surprising as their colourful lives produced some great art and literature. The group contained, one might almost say was dominated by, some influential women and this exhibition features four of them, focusing on their relationship with their gardens.

For them all, Virginia Woold, Vanessa Bell, Vita Sackville-West and Ottoline Morrell the garden represented a sanctuary, something the show brings out as this aspect, important to artists at all times, was particularly relevant during the First and Second World Wars at a time when their once-liberated and exuberant lives were overshadowed by sadness.

Curated by Dr. Claudia Tobin, this is not a very large exhibition but it is enticingly laid out in sections which show paintings, photographs, manuscripts, correspondence and even garden tools. The four women were closely linked by love and friendship and knew each other’s gardens well. Ottoline Morrell describes her home, Garsington Manor as ‘a theatre for social gatherings’ and of the group she was the most flamboyant hostess. She did however offer Garsington as a farm for pacifists and conscientious objectors during WW1. The house and its Italianate garden inspired many paintings including those we see here by Dorothy Brett and Mark Gertler which depict the ilex-fringed pond where they would all bathe by moonlight. In this section we also see works by Mark Gertler and John Nash as well as a stunning embroidered picture of Ottoline in the garden by Marian Stoll.

Virginia Woold and her sister Vanessa Bell lived quite near each other in Sussex and Virginia’s much smaller garden at Monk’s House, although tended mostly by Leonard, was both her refuge and her study, for it was here, in a hut near the orchard – her personal ‘room of one’ own’ – that she wrote many of her books.

Vanessa Bell lived at Charleston Farmhouse, the interior of which she, Duncan Grant and the others decorated lavishly but it was the garden, designed by Roger Fry, which provided inspiration for many lovely paintings. This farmhouse was a frequent gathering place for the Bloomsbury set, offering them a warm and convivial place in which to develop creativity and exchange ideas.

The garden at Sissinghurst created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson is now one of the most visited gardens in the country but it too provided an ‘escape from the world’ for the couple. Vita’s study, high in the ancient tower overlooking the excellently designed garden with its small garden rooms (which they called ‘privacies,’ ) must be one of the most idyllic writer’s rooms to exist. Something new ( to me at least) was Vita’s involvement with the Women’s Land Army in WW2. She even wrote a book about it for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries which was published in 1944. To quote Virginia Nicholson, Vita’s “love of the land and keen appreciation of young women clad in boots and britches’ possibly made her the perfect choice for such a work.

All these gardens are well worth seeing and a visit to this exhibition will certainly whet the appetite not only of garden lovers but also those interested in social history because the Bloomsbury group represented something quite unique in British life of the era.

Apart from this fascinating exhibition, the Garden Museum itself is of considerable interest. It has deep roots in history, situated as it is in the churchyard of the deconsecrated Church of St Mary’s. with at its centre the tomb of John Tradescant, Royal Gardener to Charles I and an early plant hunter. He lived nearby with his son John he founded the Ark, the first collection of objects open to the general public which went on to become the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

The Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE17LB
020 7401 8865 https://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk
Admission £14, concessions apply
Opening hours Monday-Sunday 10am-5pm
Ends 29th September