People say all kinds of things about Veddw. Here’s a selection of their comments.
Can professional designers really hope to emulate those for whom a garden is a life’s work? by Tim Richardson
“IF I WAS A GARDEN DESIGNER I would be a bit miffed by the fact that every list of iconic or outstanding contemporary gardens comprises special places which have, in most cases, been created by people who are not professional garden designers….”
Interesting feedback.
An Addition to the visit from Brockweir, Hewelsfield and St Briavels Garden Society's feedback The group leader now points out to me that I only asked about the people who didn't appreciate the garden: the majority did like it. And she asked me to add a new last...
A praise poem to the place by Elizabeth Musgrave
This is a personal email to me from a friend, so perhaps doesn't belong as a review. But Elizabeth discusses and responds to that which is so important to me, and which is so much at the heart of the garden that I wanted it here. I think what she has to say is...
The Brockweir, Hewelsfield and St. Briavels Garden Society visit Veddw
In July 2012 the Brockweir, Hewelsfield and St. Briavels Garden Society visited Veddw. They subsequently wrote up their visit for their website and the members have kindly given me permission to reproduce their comments here. To see the original and to find out more...
Veddw en fête and at dusk by Robert Webber
We were both delighted to be invited to Veddw by Anne Wareham and Charles Hawes for their Summer Party last weekend. Aside from fascinating people, including ‘literati and glitterati’ from the garden world, great food and flowing wine, the context of the garden itself...
Recent articles and reviews of Veddw
Links to articles about Anne and Veddw. (see also Anne's writing ) Veddw A visit to Veddw House Garden Is less more? And for whom? Trying not to say 'lovely' Visiting Veddw The Struggle: Working Man's Blues Veddw - a thinking person's garden An Undulating Eye-Opener...
Review of Veddw by Bridget Rosewell
The garden made by Anne Wareham and Charles Hawes in the Welsh Borders has been described by Anne as a modern romantic garden. I struggle with this description which conjures up for me visions of 1980's music and Adam Ant. In this review I try to come up with...
Extracts from “Gardens of Illusion” by Sara Maitland & Peter Matthews
"Most people consciously and unconsciously respond to the larger topography in the making of their gardens. Often it is to something simple – a slope, a curve, a mature copse, a single tree or (lucky gardeners) standing or moving natural water. If something is there,...
Review of Veddw House Garden by Noel Kingsbury
This is a garden which is very ambitious; it is intellectual and experimental, occasionally provocative, but for the most part beautiful and relaxing.
Most of our best-known, most-visited gardens are merely pretty, or, worse, picturesque. The efforts of gardeners such as Sara Maitland and Anne Wareham to raise our consciousness beyond merely oohing and aahing about dazzling mixed borders or crediting splashing water with promoting relaxation have so far had little effect.
When, at Veddw in Monmouthshire, Wareham replants the lines of vanished hedgerows with box and fills the enclosed spaces with grasses and hardy perennials, she is linking the land-use of the past with the aesthetic of the lordly parterre. By giving expression to contemporary sensibility about conservation, she invites intellectual engagement.
Gardening can be – should be – conceptual, which is simply a way of saying that gardens should have ideas in them and the ideas should be perceptible.
My favourite NGS gardens include the Charles Jenks Garden of Cosmic Speculation and the Yew Wave garden at Veddw House in Wales.
If I were a garden designer I would be a bit miffed by the fact that every list of iconic or outstanding contemporary gardens comprises special places which have, in most cases, been created by people who are not professional garden designers.
Jarman, Jencks, Finlay, Strong/Oman at The Laskett and Wareham/Hawes at Veddw – all of these have been made by individuals who have come to gardens or landscape relatively late in life via other artistic disciplines or interests.