imagination | Life in the English Cotswolds

It’s Halloween so when can be a better time to consider what scares us and what doesn’t? To be honest, I don’t really ‘get’ Halloween. I don’t find any excitement in all those ghoulish faces cut into pumpkins or in the buying of fake cobwebs and skeletons. Perhaps it’s because I don’t care for fancy dress of any kind: for me there is only a feeling of mild embarrassment on other people’s behalf as they don face paint and hideous costumes. Quite why I should feel the need to apologise for other people’s silliness when they are obviously enjoying themselves enormously, as are those around them, goodness knows. After all, it’s just a bit of harmless fun, isn’t it? Possibly, but then again, possibly not.

Like many teenagers, I messed around with Ouija boards without any lasting harm, but they can be a great source of trauma and anxiety for others. It isn’t pumpkins and fancy dress that are scary, or for that matter, it isn’t the dead either, it’s the living. And the one that’s likely to scare us the most is our living self for who knows what our minds are capable of conjuring up. Despite my indifference to Halloween, I do like a good scary moment as much as (or perhaps even more than) the next person. There is nothing like exploring a derelict building – especially if you can visit at dusk as I did, the old mansion in the photos below – to get the mind working overtime.

*The abandoned and derelict Dunmore Park*

My feeling of unease only increased when, following a maze of passageways, I found myself in the cellars. I had forgotten my mobile phone and the only source of light I had was to trigger the flash on my camera. Of course, that only gave the briefest moment of vision before plunging me into even greater darkness. Extracting myself from the cellars, I made my way through derelict gardens only to find an equally ruined tower. Pushing open the door I chose not to explore further when I realised that I was entering an empty crypt – were the coffins scattered nearby, I wondered. It was definitely time to get back home and to the land of the living.

*I just couldn’t resist entering the far door…*

*The empty crypt in the tower was just a little too creepy for me!*

A few years ago I received an invitation to a house party and stay overnight in a remote, medieval manor house. Arriving, again at dusk, and expecting to find a throng of people, instead I entered an empty and dark house. Fortunately, the electric lights worked but as I explored the building with its stone staircases and grotesque carvings I half-wondered if I was about to star in a real-life crime drama, tricked by someone with a long-held grudge. My imagination went into overdrive when leaning against a wall of oak panelling, it opened to reveal a secret room. I was glad when my fellow partygoers arrived and the house became a lively and wonderful place to stay.

*Just one of several staircases at medieval Wortham Manor*

*The grotesque carvings with eyes that seemed to follow you…*

*The panel opened unexpectedly to reveal a secret room*

Of the various creepy experiences that I have sought out or endured (depending on the circumstance) perhaps, rather surprisingly, the ones that have unsettled me most of all have been places that are normally associated with crowds, bustle and noise. The ferry to Ireland is a case in point and an unlikely candidate for spooky. Somehow, I became the first person to board and as I walked along empty decks and through deserted lounges, it felt rather as if I had just discovered the Marie Celeste. Of course, it was only a very short while before other passengers arrived but not before I’d begun to think that others must have known something that I didn’t and had decided to stay away.

*The deserted ferry to Ireland was surprisingly spooky*

*What had happened to all the other passengers???*

Perhaps the very creepiest place I’ve experienced was also the one I would have least expected it to be. Walking home late one night I decided to take a short cut through the fairground which had closed a couple of hours earlier. Associated with noise, excitement, music and flashing lights, the area was silent and deserted. There was no danger but around each corner I expected to find someone lurking in the shadows, not helped by the ghoul I came across hanging from a scaffold behind the blacked-out House of Horrors. Arriving back home in the darkness and silence of the secret valley I was met by the reflection of a hundred eyes watching me. Fortunately, they were real-life sheep and thankfully, not the ghosts of countless Sunday roasts coming back to haunt me.

*The deserted fairground: shadows and surprises around every corner…*

*Being watched as I walk home late at night*

So, what do you like/dislike about Halloween? What scares you the most? I will be intrigued to know!

I have noticed that even those that don’t show the slightest interest in things horticultural love exploring walled gardens, especially if they are overgrown and forgotten. Perhaps it stirs memories of the children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett published in 1911 in which she shows that when something unloved is cherished and cared for it can become beautiful and healthy, be it a plant or the human spirit.

Houghton_AC85_B9345_911s_-_Secret_Garden,_1911_-_cover

Photo Credit: AC85 B9345 911s, Houghton Library, Harvard University

I have been fortunate over the years in caring for a number of walled gardens in different stages of development yet, regardless of their state, there is something magical in placing the key in the lock and pushing open the door – as nasty, little Mary Lennox discovered in the novel. As she returned the garden to its former glory so, she too, grew into a loving and loveable child.

Garden Border (4) watermark

Perhaps even more so than the plants and trees within, the beauty of a walled garden comes from the walls themselves. The brickwork over time has mellowed and seems to release the warmth of a hundred or more summers, even on the greyest of days. Search the walls and they reveal secrets – a date scratched into a stone, old lead labels revealing the varieties of long-disappeared fruit trees or, occasionally, the name of a much-loved pet buried at its feet.

The walls in this deserted garden date back to the late 17th/early 18th centuries

Recorded for posterity: the trees may have disappeared but the record of the varieties remain

One of the most rewarding to explore yet emptiest of walled gardens has to be that of Dunmore Park. The house no longer stands but the garden walls remain crowned by that most eccentric of British garden room follies, the Pineapple. Here the walls are hollow, fires were lit at its feet and the walls warmed to promote early growth. Sliding stone blocks could be opened to release the smoke which, filling the garden at night helped to keep frosts at bay. Clever, those early gardeners.

The Pineapple (11) watermark The Pineapple (31) watermark The Pineapple (34) watermark

Walled gardens when not open to visitors are more often a place of silence, the only sound to accompany the gardener is that of birdsong and the hum of insects. It can be a place where your mind can be free from the everyday cares of the outside world. It can also be a place where your design ideas can run riot either in your head or, if lucky enough, in reality. The images below show before and after photos of a border I created many years ago, the idea for the colour palette coming from an Imari plate belonging to the owner of the garden. The border is living proof of an imagination run riot!

Blue & White Border - before watermark Imari Plate watermark.jpg Blue & White Border - after watermark