One of the few things I regret about those four crazy boiler-suit-and-head-torch days back in 2019 spent trying to save as many of Ellen Willmott’s papers as possible was the sheer speed of it all. There was no time to just stop and look around. The basement was full, the remit to save documents, yet…
Category: People
A Girls’ Afternoon Out to the Photographer’s Studio
It’s somehow become the go-to photo of Ellen Willmott, taking over from the old bunch of ho-hum cliched stalwarts, and don’t get me wrong, I was delighted to find it in August 2021: What you can’t tell from looking at this image of Ellen Willmott in her prime, though, is its size. It’s tiny –…
Whatever Happened to Johann Bernhard Mann?
SPOILER ALERT Okay, if you haven’t read Miss Willmott’s Ghosts yet, avert your eyes – this post is Not For You. Nothing To See Here. Move Along Please. For anyone else, however, who wondered what happened to the shy young German naval lieutenant who fell madly in love with Ellen Willmott then disappeared from her…
Ellen’s summer houses #2: Miss Willmott and Mr Napoleon
There is an intriguing legend that while on holiday in the Alps, a 19 year-old Ellen Willmott bought, on the spot, a Swiss shepherd’s hut from St Bernard Pass / Bourg St Pierre because someone told her Napoleon Bonaparte stayed in it one night during his famous Alp-crossing exercise. The story continues that she had…
Ellen Willmott and Edward Elgar
The most obvious reason why we remember Ellen Willmott as a horticulturist is because, however fragmented, there is at least some evidence of her horticulture. In her lifetime, however, Ellen was known equally – and in some circles more – for her musical abilities. Some obituaries actually describe her as ‘musician and gardener’ in that…
She who Laughs Last
As Willmott admirers went, there were few more ardent than her mentor, Swiss alpinist Henry Correvon. Rarely does he seem to go into print without some form of raving about Warley’s 65-metre ravine, its rocks, its pools, its nooks, its plants – and its creator. Privately, however, he was rather more stern with his young…
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…
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 Ghosts 