13/04/2026
‘Plein-Air, pink dress’ A lovely spring walk had and art homework completed with my daughter in Kent on the North Downs . Tracing a few family ties as we passed through the St Clere Estate, nestled in a sea of yellow rapeseed . Around 1950 my grandad Eddie was once head gardener here-his special charge was growing the vegetables. Couldn’t get that close to the walled garden, as the Estate is still in private ownership. Plenty of wild flowers and bluebells getting on with it in the nearby woodland and easy to see where my dad drew inspiration to study botany as his specialism and ultimately I guess influencing my own abridged career as a landscape architect. Orange tip butterflies and a small flock of nuthatches were highlights, though too quick for the camera. Funnily enough, I visited St Clere unintentionally for the first time last year when driving my father in law back to London from Maidstone and taking a wrong turn with his out of date TomTom….??
