'God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December."
Who else could have penned such a sentiment but a writer and lover of gardens? It's a quote from J. M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, and the author recently portrayed by Johhny Depp in the film Finding Neverland. While the film takes some liberties with the truth, and covers only a small part of his life, the scenes of the writer spending hours in Kensington Gardens are quite accurate. It was here that he conceived many of the stories that would capture the imagination of generations of readers.
Good gardens have much in common with good literature. Like a well-constructed book, a garden has carefully defined parameters, hidden corners, dark and shady parts as well as sunny ones. The garden gate is as irresistible an invitation to escape as is the alluring jacket of a new book. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that authors have placed some of their most dramatic scenes in the garden, or that writers and poets have often escaped to the verdant solitude of the garden to scribble notes or to court their muse.
Those gardens that have inspired writers and poets have a special charm. They were the haunts of the characters whose works have thrilled or moved us. To sit on the garden bench where Barrie may have conceived the idea for the boy who would forever remain a child, or to walk on the lawn where Jane Austen imagined her Mr. Darcy, of Pride and Prejudice, pacing in heartbroken frustration, adds a whole new dimension to the space.
For the gardener who is also a reader, there are literary gardens around the world that will allow the book-loving traveller to savour a special encounter with his favourite authors. England, in particular, is blooming with them.
Kensington Gardens
and J. M. Barrie
The English have always loved both their gardens and their writers so it's no surprise to find an astonishing number of literary gardens in Britain that merit a visit. Peter Pan's birthplace, Kensington Gardens, in the heart of bustling London, is an unexpected pleasure.
J. M. Barrie's connection to Kensington Gardens began when he and his wife moved to a house at 100 Bayswater Rd., overlooking the gardens. The gardens became his refuge, and it was here that he met the four young Llewelyn Davies boys who would collectively become the inspiration for Peter Pan, who "escaped from being a human when he was seven days old" and fled to Kensington Gardens to live with the birds and fairies.
Modern visitors to the 109-hectare gardens can walk the same paths that Barrie strolled, visit the Serpentine Lake and the Round Pond that became the fictional Peter's playgrounds, or enjoy the sunken Dutch garden and orangery. As a tribute to the writer's importance in the garden's history, there is a statue of Peter Pan standing on a pedestal covered with climbing squirrels, rabbits and mice.
Guildford Castle Gardens
and Lewis Carroll
Another British writer with a passion for gardens, who also authored books of interest to children, was Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. His most celebrated works, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, are full of gardens, and plants that can talk, like the impudent daisies whom Alice threatens to pick if they won't hold their tongues (at which point "several of the pink daisies turned white.")
This unconventional writer, who was also a gifted mathematician and cleric, is a good reason to visit the historic town of Guildford in Surrey. It was here that he bought The Chestnuts, a home for his two maids, six unmarried sisters and an ever-changing extended family, and here that he finished Through the Looking Glass. The red brick home on Castle Hill is close to Guildford Castle, whose flower-filled gardens were just outside his back garden gate. These gardens, beautifully kept and colourful all season, would have been a natural place for him to spend time. They are traditionally formal English gardens, with curving paths and sweeping views of the town, the River Wey and the countryside.
There's a playful bronze sculpture, set in the gardens, of Alice passing through the looking glass. Guildford Museum, just below the castle, contains a collection of mementoes of the author. The Chestnuts, the second house from the castle and marked with a blue plaque, is viewable from the outside but is not open to the public.
Cambridge, Monk's House
and Virginia Woolf
The feminists among us might get pleasure in visiting the place which, because it was forbidden to her, acted as a creative catalyst for Virginia Woolf. I have always loved the text of A Room of One's Own. As a young student, I remember reading the passage where she drifted through the well-groomed gardens of Oxbridge, a stand in for Cambridge. As she meditated on the thesis for a talk she was supposed to give, she was aware of the beauty of the gardens around her: "To the right and left bushes of some sort, golden and crimson, glowed with the colour, even it seemed burnt with the heat, of fire. On the further bank the willows wept in perpetual lamentation, their hair about their shoulders. The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree. . ."
13