Kelmscott House: The Garden, Looking from the River, by Jessie Macgregor (1847-1919). c.1918. Watercolour drawing. Source: Macgregor, facing p. 270.
William Morris loved his garden at Kelmscott House, by the Thames in Hammersmith. He was just the person to appreciate it: "O me! O me! How I love the earth, and the seasons, and weather and all things that deal with it, and all that grows out of it — as this has done! The earth and the growth of it, and the life of it. If I could but say and show how I love it!" (qtd in Macgregor 273). The small front garden is nothing to speak of, since it is so close to the river; but in those days, and still in Macgregor's time, a long stretch at the back made it, in Macgregor's words, "the loveliest and most extensive town-garden that it has fallen to my lot to describe and to depict." She adds, "I do not, of course, compare it with the " princely gardens," to repeat once more Bacon's famous phrase — but with those usually attached to the middle-class Londoner's home" (293). She goes on to explain that there were three connected garden areas then: "A wide, smooth lawn, much used for tennis and bowls, and shaded by splendid trees — among them a fine tulip tree" (293) in the first garden; then "another abounding in old-fashioned, sweet-scented flowers" (294) with an ancient mulberry tree in the middle part; and finally a kitchen garden, with another mulberry tree.
In 1882, Morris talked about being "hard at work gardening here, making dry paths and a sublimely tidy box-edging" (295) while on another occasion he wrote, "It is a hottish close morning, rather dull with London smoke; I have just been down the garden to see how things were doing, and find that they are getting on. Not so many slugs and snails by a long way, and the new-planted things are growing now; the sweet peas promising well, the peonies in bud, as well as the scarlet poppies" (296). As Macgregor says, "This habit of close observation, his joy in work, and nature, and in growing things, his intense vitality, and untiring energy, explain how it was that William Morris accomplished in a generation nothing less than the renaissance of the practical and decorative arts" (296).
This watercolour shows a small child coming down the path with a watering can in one hand, and a basket, perhaps of fruit, in the other. Throughout her book, Macgregor stresses the "the human interest of the garden" (85), but she nearly always conveys this through the history of those who have tended it. Nevertheless, she also recognises the "peculiar, haunting charm.... exhaled from the tended flowers ... the well-watered, smooth-shaven lawn ... the well-swept path" (85) and it is pleasant to see a child being initiated into this process.
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Bibliography
MacGregor, Jessie. Gardens of Celebrities and celebrated gardens in and around London. London: Hutchinson, 1918. Internet Archive. Contributed by the University of British Columbia Library. Web. 21 March 2022.
Created 22 March 2022