📣 We need your help to restore Cedric Morris’s walled garden at Benton End! We are launching an appeal to raise the £125,000 needed to bring the walled garden at Benton End back to life, and open to visitors in 2026.
In the 1950s the artist and horticulturalist Cedric Morris and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines created a ‘paradise of pollen and paint’ at Benton End, a Tudor house in Suffolk.
In 2021, Benton End was majority gifted to the Garden Museum by two exceptional patrons, entrusting us to revive Cedric’s vision of gardens and art, learning and friendship.
So far, a charitable Trust has funded the appointment of @jameshornergardens as Head Gardener, and a second Trust has funded three garden trainees. The team has spent two years recording what survives of Cedric’s plant collections, and the rich biodiversity on the site. And @sarahpricelandscapes – whose Nurture garden at the 2023 Chelsea Flower Show was inspired by Benton End – has been working with James on the plans for the garden.
🌿 Now we need your help to make it happen! We are just £125,000 from reviving a garden which might have been lost for ever – and opening to you next year.
🔗 Head to the link in our bio now to help us restore the garden.
We were very lucky to be able to visit @howardnurseries this afternoon and see their amazing iris fields, which include some Cedric Morris irises.
We met new people and even bumped into a few old friends!
Pics: Iris field, Benton Susan, Benton Daphne, Benton Olive, Benton Storrington, Benton Deirdre, Project Director Beatrice with Sarah Cook and Jim Marshall
Teamwork makes…
Well, you know. Volunteers and visitors this week, all helping us to prep for opening the walled garden in less than a month’s time!
And…the first irises are out with Edward of Windsor leading the way 😃
Surviving plants from Cedric’s garden at Benton End, 1939-1982, holding centre stage in our renewed walled garden. The magnificent tree Cercis siliquastrum always flowers in sync with the elegant yet rarely encountered Rubus x tridel ‘Benenden’, a shrub Cedric received from his peer Collingwood Ingram. Scattered within the meadow are handsome clumps of Asphodelus albus, a plant with a prolific presence across southern Europe, perhaps where Cedric first encountered it on one of his Mediterranean sojourns.
Amongst a copious quantity of the spurge Euphorbia oblongata is a now relocated Paeonia lactiflora hybrid with single flowers, this was found beneath a thicket of field maple and brambles in the front garden. A couple of tough and lean self sown Lathyrus odoratus ‘Cedric Morris’ which made it through the wet winter and are the first sweet peas into flower along with Spanish poppy Papaver rupifragum.
Photos by @coraliemlthomas
We’ve been busy! We’ve interviewed and are delighted to have appointed some fabulous people to our weekend Front of House team, ready for the walled garden opening in June.
We still need a weekday DM, Tuesdays and Thursdays, June - July.
Take a look at gardenmuseum.org.uk/work-with-us
Photos include a visitor to Cedric’s greenhouse last week and plants looking good from the last fortnight, including gorgeous tulips planted at the fabulous @bayntunflowers workshop last year!
Growth, changes and additions in the walled garden…no two days are the same.
Book your tickets to visit the walled garden in June/July now!
Link in bio.
Benton End Revived begins!
With thanks to @thenationallottery and @heritagefunduk , we are excited to share that the Garden Museum is seeking an experienced Project Manager to lead a team of consultants on the renewal and redevelopment of Benton End. The goal of this major capital project is to transform Grade II* listed Benton End into a vibrant, accessible, and sustainable arts and learning centre, reimagining the radical spirit of Sir Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines’s art school and garden legacy.
This commission covers both the Development Phase and, subject to funding and performance, the Delivery Phase of a National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported capital project. The Project Manager will collaborate closely with the client, stakeholders and wider consultant team throughout.
This opportunity is made possible thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Lottery players.
Please refer to the consultancy brief and appendices which can be found at gardenmuseum.org.uk/career for further information about the project manager role.
Early spring flowers pushing through the meadow sward in the walled garden. All the fritillaries, grape hyacinths, Ornithogalum nutans and Corydalis bulbosa are surviving plants from Cedric’s time gardening here. This spring also sees the flowering of the first seed grown Anemone stellata (now renamed Anemone hortensis), they are set to become a real star plant once again as more and more are established. Thanks to Emily Allard @bethchattogardens for saving seed for us from plants Beth herself planted in her gravel garden after receiving seed from Cedric sometime in the 1960’s.
A hugely transformative week at Benton End as we welcomed back Breffni, Chris & Jordan to join our garden team for a week focused on creating an area of our walled garden which was previously a large 90’s flagstone terrace. You may remember we crushed all the flagstones in the first week of the garden build project, some 6 months ago. Bringing back this material as a dressing for what has become a rubbly dry garden along the length of the back of the house, with a rill coursing through it, delivering rainwater to the restored (Victorian era) brick cistern.
A mega team was assembled for Friday and our nearby friends @bethchattogardens generous as ever, helping to nestle hundreds of plants in to the garden.
Added to this was the spectacle of limewash mysteriously drying on the house walls. Finally the garden has a coloured backdrop. We’ve worked with @ingilby.paints to create a Suffolk tone once again. Artistically coated onto the walls by @garbojoy95 all week! 🎨
A real coming together of landscapers and gardeners! @garden_build@breffni_mcgeough 💚 Jordan 💚 @bethchattogardens
Photos by @syb_dcy & @jameshornergardens
📣 Book now to visit the Benton End Walled Garden this summer!
After years of planning, research and gardening, our project to restore and revive Cedric Morris’ walled garden in Hadleigh is shaping up for a summer in bloom, so we’re opening for a limited number of garden visits this June and July.
Head Gardener @jameshornergardens has been working in creative collaboration with @sarahpricelandscapeson on the walled garden’s renewal, bringing Cedric Morris’ rare plants back alongside some exciting new interventions.
Early visitors may be just in time to see our collection of Cedric Morris irises in flower!
🔗 Book now on our website at the link in bio, or get in touch via email to book a guided group tour: [email protected]
Photos @syb_dcy
Visit us this summer!
We are excited to share the news that the renewed walled garden will be open to visitors on selected Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays in June and July.
Book your tickets at gardenmuseum.org.uk/benton-end
For group guided tours led by the gardens team please email us at [email protected] (min charges apply)
Pic: work in progress in the walled garden this week
Thanks to @jimbennettfurniture the garden team no longer need to use an assortment of old gates and pallets to block the gap in the long south facing wall of the walled garden. We now have a gate! Made using oak which fell in the Great Storm of 1987, we are in awe of Jim’s skill and mastery of fine carpentry. He also happens to very likely be the closest local woodworker to Benton End.
