Magical refuge of open gardens

In Oscar Wilde’s compelling short story, The Selfish Giant, children play in the garden of a giant’s castle during his absence.

On his return, he chases them out of the garden and keeps them out with a wall.

He is punished with perpetual winter. It is only when a bird sings, and the children get in through a hole in the wall, that he realises the error of his ways. Spring returns, but one child is missing.

As the giant is about to die, the child returns with the stigmata of nails on his hands and feet. He is Christ, and he leads the giant to paradise.

The “giants” of our time are the powerful and ever-expanding class of multi-millionaires. But are they as selfish as the giant of the story?

Visiting a magnificent garden is life-enhancing for everyone, and more so for those who are cooped up in tiny flats.

Countryside is lovely, but can be a little scary on a weekday when there are few other walkers. Now that we are recovering from lockdown, we need big, beautiful gardens more than ever.

Just when we need them, two of our finest local gardens have closed, or may be about to close, their doors to the public.

One is the Salutation (Sandwich), up for sale to a private buyer for £5 million, the other is Chilham Castle, recently sold for £15 million. Visiting Chilham recently, I spoke to a single mother with an autistic daughter. They spend a lot of time at Chilham, a magical refuge from their small Ashford flat.

She was distraught at the possibility of it closing. Surely if a garden has been open to the public for decades, and is then to be closed, this is a major “change of use”, which should require planning permission?

Opening a garden to the public for a few hours twice a week (as currently at Chilham) is a minimal restriction of the owners’ right to enjoy their property, but makes a huge difference to other people’s lives.

The Last Days of Chilham (how I hope not) seemed the right moment for a “no car, no plastic” eco-picnic.

Four of us packed a plastic-free

picnic with food from the Goods Shed, which uses very little plastic, not like supermarkets.

We all met at the bus station, and got the 11.20 am 1X bus. We got off at Felborough Close, Chilham, a peaceful place with no main road to cross, and walked up a picturesque street to the castle.

We boasted to everyone we met about our eco-picnic, and were astounded at our rapturous reception: “All Chilham will thank you”, and “when there are lots of cars accelerating up the hill, it is hell for village residents”. One lady, who got off the bus with us, even gave us a packet of cheese straws for our picnic. We had a wonderful day, and as we had a 40-minute wait for the bus (the garden closes at 4pm, the bus is at 4.40pm) we talked to all the people outside the tea shop and pub, before walking down to the bus stop, where the bus was right on time.

Messrs Hudson and Britnell [Letters, July 15 and 29] see a car as giving “freedom”, and I would agree that some places are inaccessible without one. But bus travel gives conversation with strangers, so why not try a bit of both? Also, views from the top of a bus (try to get seats at the front) are far better than from a car, and everyone can enjoy one (or two!) glasses of cool, white wine at the picnic, with no poor, left-out “designated driver”. Rosemary Sealey

Black Griffin Lane, Canterbury