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…
Category: Ellen Willmott
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 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…
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…
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…
Miss Willmott's Ghosts 