It occurs to me that I keep referring to something a bit strange-sounding in these blogs and that it may be worth explaining what the bloomin’ heck I’m talking about. Today, therefore, I’m going to focus on one of the best tools Willmott obsessives have in their box: The Kip. It’s a nickname, short for…
Fireman Ellen Ann
On the night of 2-3rd September, 1907, Miss Willmott’s magnificent, antique-filled, wisteria-draped French villa burned. Ellen was not at home at the time . She missed the drama by mere hours, taking the overnighter down from Paris to join her sister and brother in law – who were in the building, fast asleep. No one…
When Ellen met Monty…
I have a confession to make: My name is Sandra and I am an M.R. James fan. So, okay, for most people this is going to be a frustrating, completely self-indulgent post but it’s probably my only opportunity to talk about Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936), one of my favourite writers, in the same literary breath…
A Pair of Field Glasses
We know the current whereabouts of very few objects that absolutely, without doubt, belonged to Ellen; even fewer objects that absolutely, without doubt, also belonged to her family. So today’s piece is very special. These binoculars are not in the first flush of youth – or at least their once-sturdy, red velvet-lined case isn’t. It’s…
Ellen Willmott and Mr Bean
I recently had the immense pleasure of talking with Professor Michael Fay, Head of the Conservation Genetics team at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and orchideer extraordinaire. Mike and his colleague Mark Chase were kind enough to look at some of Ellen Willmott’s photos of orchids and help identify what they were. It took a…
Works at Warley
During the pandemic, just like humanity, Warley suffered. Over lockdown passionate volunteers were barred from carrying out pretty much any maintenance work – though quite how it is impossible to social distance when there’s about 12 of you in 30-odd acres of woodland still beats me. The hurt was palpable among the volunteers, seeing their…
Secret Signs
Warley Place is always slightly mysterious. It reveals its deepest secrets only to those who really – but really – look. We have no idea whether Ellen was aware, for example, that some of the stone her builders used in various parts of the garden is not quite what it first appears to be… The…
The People’s Princess
This post is for anyone who has read Miss Willmott’s Ghosts up to the end of Chapter Seven and just can’t get enough backstory. My editor very sensibly cut this section out of the book and I admit… it’s not absolutely necessary to know the following to make sense of Chapter Eight. But it is…
Miss Willmott’s Orchids
A couple of days ago I visited the annual Orchid Festival at Kew. It’s a sight to behold, this year celebrating the flora (and fauna) of Cameroon, with orchids used en masse, almost like bedding to create rivers and waterfalls of blooms in a dazzling riot of colour. I highly recommend it, it is just…
The Secret Gate
Everyone who visits Warley Place will know the tiny building at the south entrance, officially “South Lodge”, more affectionally known as Jacob Maurer’s cottage. I’ll talk about that one another day, as I also will about the lesser-known but still-standing North Lodge. Each is worth its own separate post, but today I want to look…
“That” Knuckleduster
There’s been a lot of talk about Ellen Willmott’s knuckleduster, so I thought today I’d tell the story of how it was found – and what I think it means… Warning: Most of the photographs in this post are going to be a bit out of focus. This is because it was DARK in that…
Miss Willmott’s Lawnmower
While Ellen Willmott is most famous for her William Robinson-esque ‘Wild Gardens’ she also owned acres and acres of formal lawns and paths. I was enjoying some rather fuzzy images of her butler James Robinson playing with some of her 13 dogs on the lawn outside Warley Place the other day… …and started wondering how…
Villa Boccanegra
Ventimiglia, Italy. Confession: Writing Miss Willmott’s Ghosts during covid meant that everything I knew about Villa Boccanegra at the time came from many, many photos, and long zoom talks with the garden’s keeper Ursula Piacenza and her friend and neighbour Carolyn Hanbury. On Monday I finally got to visit Ellen’s only extant garden and was…
Thank God for Tea
Over the past few days I’ve been reminded of Ellen Willmott’s relationship with the Royal family, and especially Queen Alexandra. Of course I failed to photograph Ellen’s personal invitation to King Edward VII’s funeral, but despite her famous no-show at the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour shindig a decade earlier, there is no way on…
An intimate souvenir
I often marvel at the strange range of objects that have, against the odds, managed to survive down the years since Ellen Willmott’s death, when so many ‘important’ pieces have been lost. Even the humblest survivors can speak, however, and often reveal some intriguing things. One of the oddest possessions that has actually lasted may…
Munstead Wood and Warley Place
Late in 1932, Ellen Willmott got a gut feeling that she needed to visit her old friend Gertrude Jekyll. She was just in time; a few weeks later, Jekyll passed away. We found the order of service to her funeral a couple of weeks ago, which Willmott attended in December with an extremely elderly William…
Peak Perfection: the dramatic reimagination of Chatsworth’s rock garden
The last time I visited the extraordinary rock garden at Chatsworth House, back in -ouch – 2014, my overwhelming impression was ‘yellow’. It was majestic, of course – the sheer amount of – well – rock – is a jaw-dropper, but I couldn’t have named a plant or noted a specific area that came to…
A Butterfly Flaps its Wings: Ellen Willmott and the Japanese Ambassador…
I’ve always been intrigued by a fleeting mention in Ellen Willmott’s previous biography: an invitation to lay out a garden for the Emperor of Japan. She turned it down, we’re told, because she had ‘too much to do in Europe’. Author Audrey le Lièvre admits there is no date and no evidence for the story…
Potentilla Nepalensis ‘Miss Willmott’
Nick Stanley, holder of the Ellen Willmott National Plant Collection, has a theory about the plants named for her. Nick suggests that anything named ‘Ellen Willmott’ was named by a close friend; anything called ‘Miss Willmott’ was more formal; an honour from someone who admired her but was, perhaps, a little more ‘awed’. Of course it’s…
Foxgloves: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
…at Warley Place, anyway. Most people love Warley for its drifts of daffodils. After all, Daffs mean Prizes – Miss Willmott won RHS medals a-go-go for hers. She even boobytrapped the best ones against bulb thieves. There must still be a few prize specimens in there, it’s a whole bunch of yellow lovely and I…
Miss Willmott's Ghosts 