Midhurst WI

A report from the July meeting which took place on Wednesday, July 3.

The meeting opened with a lovely ploughman’s lunch provided by our usual caterer Sally.

This was greatly enjoyed and gave members a chance to have some relaxed social time together.

The speaker this month, David Standing, had been chosen to give us a presentation about Gilbert White’s garden, which members will be visiting in September.

David had been head gardener at Gilbert White’s garden in Selborne for 38 years and he gave a fascinating insight into both the garden’s evolution and Gilbert White himself.

David used White’s diary, written between 1751-71 to explain how the garden had been created.

David explained that the diary had been invaluable in helping him bring the garden back to it’s original structure and his research had taken him as far as the prestigious Harvard University.

David explained that White took his inspiration from landscape gardener William Kent who championed

“urns, arbours, obelisks and statues placed in a romantic landscape”.

However, White did not have the financial resources to copy the gardens and statuary of the great stately homes like Petworth House but he did not allow this to stifle his ambition.

He requisitioned the local carpenter to make a wooden cut out version of the statue of Hercules and put cheap terracotta urns on painted wooden plinths.

These looked like the real thing when viewed from a distance.

He also made up for the small size of his garden by planting on the land of his neighbours. David’s research has allowed him to ‘bring back to life’ plants that were popular in the 18th century but have since fallen out of favour and many of these have pride of place in the recreated gardens at Selborne

There is no doubt that David’s talk made us even more enthusiastic about visiting Selborne.

There will not be a meeting in August but new members are always welcome and anyone interested should contact Jill O’grady on 01730 601273 for further details.