Savile Gardens again

Autumn in the Savile Gardens. I should try to remember this lovely afternoon because I sometimes feel very down and very fragile.

Three different views of a sculpture - lovely shadows. My son said the lovers look as though they are eating each other.

I enhanced this pic for clarity but it was an incredible grass with dead ends to the leaves which seemd to improve its impact

We particularly loved this yellow planting with yellow hot pokers

This planting was completely different from last year's

But the hydrangea garden is always gorgeous. I haven't enhanced these at all.

London Open House - celebrating architecture, buildings

I decided to volunteer for this as I haven't volunteered for anything recently. You volunteer online and then they send you the Open House "catalogue" of places open to the public for free on that weekend. I decided to volunteer at the Brunel Museum in Rotherhythe on Saturday afternoon as I am interested in Brunel; and the Herbarium at Kew Gardens sounded really great too, (and I read about it in my "Plants from Roots to Riches" book) so signed up for Sunday morning. It was quite easy to get to the Brunel Museum on the Jubilee Line, (and you can also go on the East London line), and the Museum director, Robert, was glad to see us as he really needed the help of volunteers to man the shop/café, buy milk, take money, put the rubbish out and generally be there to talk to people. I went to Robert's talk in the morning and read all the signs and then I was pretty well-prepared to answer questions. My fellow volunteer was an interesting American who had moved from California to the locality (why?) and was looking for something to do since she had retired from research into ?finance/ markets???

It was the devil of a job to get to  Kew Gardens on Sunday morning, I went all the wrong way. There was a choice of jobs. I stood in front of the Open Weekend sign for the Tropical Nursery and tried to entice visitors to it. This is where propagation and care of the Tropical plants takes place, and of course the staff can nurse plants up to be looking fabulous and then pop them into the display in the public greenhouses. Unfortunately it is placed right in front of the small children's play area so most of the people there were concerned with toilets/nappy change and the café rather than seeing the botanical care going on. I was lucky to be standing with a horticulturalist called Lorraine who worked in the Tropical Nursery and specialised in cacti and succulents. I asked her all sorts of questions about the plants and what she does all day! It was lucky she was so nice because I was standing there for a long time. In the end I didn't get to see the herbarium at all, and it is only open once a year. I hope it is open next year, and I will definitely go. I did walk around Kew in the afternoon, (free entry for volunteers) and I will post about what I saw.

There are quite a few attractions at Kew for children; it has changed in that respect. There is a sculpture exhibition at the moment - brilliant for the older ones.

Sculpures at the Savill Gardens

I am not a great photographer. I took these pictures with my phone because it has this great property; it stills the image and then takes a photo of it, which helps me because I seem to be very wobbly.

The sculptures were mainly rather twee and whimsical, and they are for sale, so if you like this sort of things you should go to the Savill gardens and go shopping this month. I'm going to post my favourites in another post.

 

I was trying to take a pic of the family reacting to the sculptures

Label for this sculpture

this is meant to be a heron I think

Happy! Saville Gardens - Botanical

Yesterday I decided it was a long time since I had been to the Savill Gardens and I would have a brisk walk around. To my surprise - I enjoyed it enormously and spent a good hour walking all over the place. I think it was due to the autumn morning light. It's subtle and golden. There were sculptures on display and I tried to photograph the best aspect of the ones I liked. There were also some flowers. With inspired planting, Dahlias look great at this time of year. This first picture shows the wonderful light. My next post with be the pictures of the sculptures.

Too much light, from wherever I stood.

Sculpture - belongs in the other post

Can't remember the name of it, but what fascinating forms!

Memorials in London: Charles Sargeant Jagger

I have probably been thinking too much about World War 1 recently, but I was glad, anyway, to see some war memorials on our walk in London at the weekend. We have a ridiculous number of memorials and plaques in London, but hey, it's an old place, and interesting if you have some knowledge of history.

Recently, on a programme about Great Lives, a sculptor called Martin Jennings (I wonder if he is related to the Jennings family of Ampleforth?) suggesting another sculptor called Charles Sargeant Jagger, who made a great sculpture in memoriam to the Royal Artillery after the war. It was "direct and honest about the horrors of war". There's an anonymity about the soldiers. He wanted to make a sculpture for the people like himself who had survived the war, and knew the truth of it. It was a new form of art.

 

 

Tens of thousands of people went to see the unveiling of the memorial after the war.

Platform 1 of Paddington station.

A soldier reading a letter from home.

Jagger's father apprenticed him as a silver engraver for Mappin and Webb. In the evenings he studied drawing and modelling.

Then the war started and Jagger went to fight in Gallipoli; it was a terrible, terrible experience. He spent two days digging a trench with his hands in very hard ground. His platoon sergeant was shot and died in his arms. He was wounded soon afterwards and shipped to Malta. He soon went back to the western front and fought until the end of the war.

Later, he could be very intolerant of those who had not contributed to the war effort.

He went back to sculpture immediately after the war, even though he had not been able to practise his art for all the years of the war. He produced one large sculpture every three months or so for about six years. (1919-25) Once he ceased to make war memorials his work became less interesting (according to Martin Jennings).

The design for this memorial had to be approved by various committees and by the King, because of course it changed Hyde Park corner, an important landmark.

Jagger was perhaps disappointed that he didn't get more letters of admiration. He had critics. Lord Curzon hated the Artillery memorial and called it a "hideous" and "a toad".

Jagger died at the age of 48. In the war he had been shot twice and gassed. His very hard work had perhaps weakened his lungs with dust, and he died of pneumonia.