NOTES from. near and far // April outings
Looking for a nature fix? Here are just some of the wild, green, and inspiring spaces, where I recently got mine.
I’m finding myself with a bit more ‘free’ time now that my children are with their dad on opposite weekends and one night a week. I’ve been a really hands-on mum for over a decade among the writing, editing, and gardening, so I was daunted by this. There is some relief – I mean I’m totally knackered by the end of my longest stint of solo parenting two growing boys – and I don’t need a babysitter for meeting up with friends. But forcing oneself to get ‘out and about’ or ‘make the most of your time’ doesn’t fit the box either. Checking in with nature, however, with or without them – as a constant – does provide continuity, solace, and inspiration. I’ve even started drawing again, something I did a lot of as a child, through art college, and a design degree, and am keen to get out and draw in the field. Here are some of my highly recommended visits over the past month. Looking forward to sharing more.
This now national landmark of my birth-town now known as Wakefield but formally referred to as ‘Near Leeds’ ticks lots of boxes for the building itself, created using self-compacting concrete, pigmented to echo the tones of Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture, to the well curated exhibitions inside, and the creative children’s activities. But it’s the gardens that apron its edges and those of the surrounding 19th century red-brick mills (currently being restored into Tileyard North, a 135,000 square foot creative industries hub, the largest outside London – what I would have given for that as a youth!), that take me back time after time. Designed by renowned landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith and curated by cultural gardener Katy Merrington, each smooth surfaced pathway is offset with an artful and pollinator-friendly planting scheme of successional bulbs, perennials, and small hedges and trees. Our April visit included drifts of muscari, narcissi, tulips, and scilla among the unfurling beech hedges, grasses, and blossom. I know from previous years that this colourful display just keeps hotting up through the summer, with ample interest through autumn and winter. My pots and borders are endlessly inspired, and always feel a bit like home.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton
Probably my all time favourite place having visited since I was a toddler and the totem pole was one of relatively few sculptures on site, through teenage field trips and after hours walks with boyfriends when it was still known as Bretton Hall, the site of an art school and teaching college, and into my adult years when it began to morph into the world class sculpture park that it is today. There’s always new art to see but the landscape keeps changing too, with restored woodlands and bridges, improved areas around lakes, projects that count pollinators and celebrate wildflowers and fauna, deer shelters and sheep run that double as exhibits, and the rolling hills in the background (with Barnsley nestled in between) seen through the curves of a Henry Moore or a Robert Indiana LOVE letter. We come to play pooh sticks and count the daisies, marvel at the espaliered fruit trees in the bothy, breath a sigh of relief under the huge trees that have always been, and be energised nature-inspired art inside and out. The old college and house was tipped to become a hotel many moons ago but has since been shut, including the camellia house. Hopefully this will be returned to the public again soon.
Another childhood haunt, this stately home and gardens is now also home to the Yorkshire School of Garden Design, which adds extra resonance in terms of plant appreciation. We wanted to get my dad out and there’s a shuttle bus that takes visitors from the main entrance to the house, courtyard (where the restaurant and shop are), and the church. From those vantage points he could at least view some of the Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown designed landscape now managed by head gardener Trevor Nicholson, including rolling pastures over which red kites freely flew, plus the topiary and just pushing through perennial planting of The Terrace – originally built in 1894 by Sir Charles Barry. His elaborate flowerbed designed were grassed over in 1959 as they were too difficult to maintain but The Parterre was restored in 1994 with clipped box cones and hedges and over 20,000 plants and bulbs added each year to create a mass of successional interest. We kids and our kids wandered further afield to hunt eggs around the lake (it was Easter), taking us through the stunning Himalayan garden with a land that time forget style rockery and stupa. Our last stop was the wonderful walled garden with rows of edibles, herbs and cut flowers, dilapidated hothouses, and a just blossoming orchard beneath which pink and white checked fritillaries mingled. Altogether heaven. If you are thinking about becoming a garden or planting designer, what a place to learn your craft.
Camley Street Natural Park, Kings Cross, London
On Saturday – also known as the first sunny day this year – my mum arrived on a train from Wakefield to Kings Cross. On onward journey being my sisters’ house in Crouch End, I steered her (and her wheelie suitcase) up Pancras Road so we could order a cab away from the fray. Except we kept walking and walking until we found ourselves curving round Camley Street and through the entrance of the newly reopened Camley Street Nature Reserve. I last came here about 10 years ago when a publishing event required me to turn up at 4am in the morning for a birdsong event. A nature reserve in the middle of a busy urban hub is always a hit but as Kings Cross upped its ante with the cosmopolitan glamour of Granary Square, Coal Drops Yard, St Pancras, Eurostar, and the rest, so the nature reserve needed an overhaul too. And what a joy it is, a slice of rewilded woodland, and wetland betwixt the canal and the highway, decommissioned gas towers and newbuilds strangely sculptural in the background. A rich tapestry of birches and beeches, wild garlic and three-cornered leeks, nettles and alkanet, ivy and cow parsley. And a café, at which we could sit and solar-power ourselves, apple juice in hand, bagel station noted for when I bring the kids (after they’ve jumped in the fountains round the corner first so my impressively impulsive eldest doesn’t jump in the lake). It’s only a short hop for us on the bullet train from Stratford International to Kings Cross so I’ll be coming regularly.
Chalet Woods, Wanstead Park, London
A neighbourhood secret that is now a much visited bluebell wood, and why shouldn’t folk share in its glory – just keep to the paths so that those precious native leaves, stems, and then flowers don’t get crushed underfoot before they’ve had half a chance to shine. I’ve written about the bluebells a few times for local and national publications (see The Forest) and never tire of the folklore that surround these alluringly scented, coloured, and bell-shaped flowers, from connections with ancient woodland to habitats for fairy folk. Wanstead Park is well worth a visit for its surrounding nature including the almost southernmost point of Epping Forest, the wet-fowl that preside over its series of manmade lakes (so many cygnets and ducklings in spring), the avenue of sweet chestnuts that lead up to a pillared ‘temple’ and the ghost of the park’s missing mansion, and the wildflowers and grasses around the tea hut, network of pathways, and various entrances and exits. It’s a quick run or walk across Wanstead Flats for me to visit but those from further afield can wander down from Wanstead Park or Wanstead stations.