The Secret Garden

We have many favourite places on our morning sojourns....Elsa the Explorer and I...

...but none more than this little haven...
....a place that set off my interest in fascinating local history.

With it's broken wooden bench and row of small garden ornaments...

it's an unexpected sight in the depths of a forest.

We found it by chance when Elsa was a puppy.

She scampered off the path in the woods and I chased after her...found her here..surrounded by small statues.

I left in haste, pulling the bemused Elsa behind me....assuming it to be someone's private space.

As it turned out I was right....it was....but..

...some 80 years ago.

By the time I heard and became intrigued by the story of the artistic, beautiful and wildly unconventional Lorna Wishart, her love for author Laurie Lee ..their daughter Yasmin... who grew up to be the most wonderful artist..

and...
..... the secret garden they had made in the war years..

......I couldn't find it

It took almost 2 years of woodland meanderings before I discovered it again.

I wish I'd met Lorna.

One of the four Garman sisters.... part of the Bloomsbury set....their lives between the wars vividly documented in

The Rare and the Beautiful
By Cressida Connolly


By coincidence, the barn I rented as a studio to work and sell furniture  from when I  began Arundel Eccentrics ...was on the farm where she  had lived.

Lorna left her mark in the Arundel area....

Tales of her riding her horse down Arundel High Street in the middle of the night...and flying around the area in her chocolate coloured Bentley....... still told.

...the Madonna statue by the pond in Binsted woods was originally put there by her.

At the moment there are diggers in woods taking down trees....

....getting ever nearer.

It will be sad if this quirky part of Sussex history is destroyed.


Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
is on at
The Priory Playhouse in Arundel

17th to the 24th August

#thesecretgarden
#lornawishart
#laurielee

#lucienfreud
#ciderwithrosie
#Arundel
#Bloomsbury
#theatre
#prioryplayhousearundel
#lovearundel