Comments on: Prince Charles' Postmodern Garden Design for Highgrove

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:32:17 +0000

In reply to macailla seaver. There are tours of Highgrove throughout the summer but (1) you have to be a member of a group to book a tour and the other people on your tour need to belong to the same group (eg a garden club, a WRI group, a church group, a photographic society) (2) the tour has to be booked a very long time in advance of the tour date.

By: macailla seaver

macailla seaver — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:18:21 +0000

please advise if there are going to be any tours of Highgrove next year and any details you can provide

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:58:27 +0000

All good questions! But I am thinking more about ‘mood’ than about style. As to who could do it? I do not know but would like to hear of candidates. How about Ueli Mueller Landscape Design – the winner of http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/chinese_landscape_architecture_competition ?

By: Adam Hodge

Adam Hodge — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:39:36 +0000

As the Bannermans have influenced HRH with a ‘folk music’ style who is there that he would respect and commission with a Baroque flavour to their landscape design work ? I wonder how one could translate Rameau or Charpentier, Pachelbel or Bach, Vivaldi or Cimarosa into a garden ?

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:49:24 +0000

I have not been to Hanham, yet, but of course I have no objection to tongue-in-cheek-in-garden, or to folk music in a garden. But I also like the seriousness of Baroque music (which I do not often find in Baroque gardens) and I would like so see HRH having a bash at this ‘style’ of design – by putting style in quotes I mean that I would like to see a garden with a more serious moral and artistic ambition than folk music. I am not talking about visual style. Perhaps I mean an attitude of mind.
On the general point, I think HRH is by far the most interesting garden patron his family has ever produced.

By: Adam Hodge

Adam Hodge — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:25:27 +0000

I would class HRH’s style as post-classical and the Bannermans as post-Baroque or maybe faux-Victorian. Having seen and hugely enjoyed the plantings around the main lawn at Hanham one can but smile at the dreamy romantiscm of their creations. I cant say I ‘get’ the Stumperies or the temples with the faux stone effect in wood, but so what..it’s what they like and evidently the HRH as well.
What is refreshing is the constant examples of tongue-in-cheek touches..even as far as the sign that says This is an Old Fashioned area ,or however it’s worded. One can so easily slip into a slightly anal seriousness about styles and how right or wrong the place of assessment matches up.
HRH has the opportunity to do what he likes in a decent sized space and has grasped the opportunity with gusto, even if a few of the dimensions are or where a bit timid.i.e the Tilia avenue beyond the golden Yew walk is showing it wasnt planted wide enough, so now the trees are crowding together and obscuring the feature at the end.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 17:42:36 +0000

Thank you for the comment. We classify music into chronological periods and into types (folk, military, soul, classical, church, etc). Gardens can be placed in parallel categories. At Highgrove, I equate the Bannerman’s contribution with folk music (Adam: do you think their work is better decribed as romantic?) but I think HRH sees own work modern classical, and that he probably regrets not being able to produce a religious garden, though he also likes to chuck in some humourous lyrics.

By: Adam Hodge

Adam Hodge — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:52:36 +0000

I visited Highgrove this week. It is an intriguing amalgam of HRH’s own preferences and interests with an assortment of influences from other,no doubt eminent advisers, most obviously the Bannermans of Hanham Court near Bristol.

It is evident HRH loves trees especially Fagus, as there were many interesting varieties throughout the grounds we had access to. He also loves Hosta’s as there are areas where they were planted a-plenty ! He also has the task of placing a myriad of well-meaning gifts around the estate such that they sit well in the landscape. To that effect one is aware of a plethora of assorted ornaments throughout. In some instances i.e. a column from a station he,as imaginately recommnended by the Bannermans, has added a fine sculpture of a large bird, wings in full spread. It works !

Amusingly as one advanced around the woods and areas where the Bannermans have had considerable influence I couldnt help being reminmded of Marie Antoinette and her various garden amusements. It seems the Bannermans have a delightfully charming, agressively romantic perspective on gardens such that the various temple-like structures ,stumperies and other fancies pull one into a la la land adrift of today’s reality of life.

There were many good features all over the gardens , and yet my one abiding sense was that within the expanse he has to play with it was some all somehow rather intense and tight. One wanted to just prize open the avenues to be wider,moderate some of the Yew hedges of the intense and almost excessive ornamentation, broaden the paths and views in the woods, use his passion for ferns as a counterbalance to the Hosta fest’s ..perhaps using one or two types of fern as an underplanting of textural background to the substantial leaves of Hostas, to name a few.

All in all it was a pleasing garden because of the richness of planting, but I would tend to exercise a margin of restraint when it comes to the shabby chique looks the Bannermans have probably recommneded on some of the paved terraces. Whilst Alchemilla ,Thymus and other plants growing amongst the paving looks relaxed it also errs on looking a mess [and I’m not the tidiest person] .

At the end of the day it is his garden, it is managed and developed with a generous wallet and he’s been good enough to let us punters look around it. So, Thanks !

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:32:06 +0000

Yvonne, I agree about the character of the central vista (and I think it has scope for improvement(

By: Yvonne

Yvonne — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:22:18 +0000

the whole design works well even the post modern vista, though it is at the same time not completely removed from it’s traditional origins