Prospect Cottage

I have wanted to visit Prospect Cottage for many years, and today walking around the shingle paths of Derek Jarman’s most amazing garden does not disappoint.

The black rain clouds over Dover when we visit an old school of G’s have thankfully moved on - or rather we have moved as while the sun shines over Dungeness, black skies remain behind us. 

I just love the whole surreally beautiful area. Short of time and energy, I’ll leave it to the words of Nick Levinson to describe: 

"Dungeness is a big attraction to visitors,artists, photographers, fishermen, walkers and consumers of sea food. It is a peculiar place, quite different from the lush inland pastures as it is composed of the largest shingle beach in Europe, a peninsular built-up over about six thousand years by the sea. Despite being one of the driest parts of the United Kingdom, it is a haven for wild flowers and birds. The Southern tip has a curious colony of black tarred fishermen‟s huts and winching equipment for hauling their boats up on the beach and the strange little dwellings, often incorporating old railway carriages, erected before the days of planning permission."    

Prospect Cottage itself is glorious - unlike any other garden I’ve ever visited. Like everywhere else here, there are no boundaries, and I’m free to just wander round. Whilst there is obvious planting, the endemic vegetation edges the garden, the same shingle stretching towards the road and sea, and to the power station dominating the Dungeness peninsula. Salt loving beach plants stand vibrant in the shingle, gleaming in the sun against the tarred black wooden cottage and its yellow painted window. Everywhere you look, carefully curated flotsam forms natural sculptures amongst the plants; stone circles, wooden totems, talismans. Each gaze brings something new. Quite clearly, it’s an artist’s garden, but equally it’s the garden of a man with horticultural expertise and passion.  Sadly, Jarman died in 1994, but the garden and cottage have been saved by the Art Fund. 

Jarman himself described his garden as a paradise, and I feel blessed to be here at all; to be here in blazing sunshine seems unreal. Here the sun is central; written on one of the timber walls - now quite faint, but in my last extra - are the words of one of my favourite poems, John Donne’s The Sun Rising: - 

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, 
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ? 
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ? 
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide 
Late school-boys and sour prentices, 
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, 
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 
In that the world's contracted thus ; 
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be 
To warm the world, that's done in warming us. 
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ; 
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere

I really don’t want to leave, and we hope to return to the area before our week is up, but we have more to see today. Our journey back winds through the greener area of the Romney Marsh, and eventually we find the footpath we are looking for. We walk through fields of rustling barley, the footpath bone dry and cracked through lack of rain, to reach the single arch ruins of Medley Church. By now we’re back in dark cloud territory, but once more the gods are with us and the sun breaks through to illuminate the ancient stones. Then finally it’s on to Thomas a Becket Church, Fairfield an icon of the marshes. Again we have the sun, but sadly the iconic view across the river is ruined by the scaffolding, so there’s some careful crouching in the thistles to hide the offending structure! It’s been a long but blissful day. 

Thanks so much for your lovely comments, hearts and stars for Sunday’s Avocet. Apologies once more for brief comments and infrequency of hearts! 

Today’s main is inevitably Jarman’s garden. I love this place so much I find it hard to chose a shot that really captures the magic, so of course, there are extras, plus the two churches.