A place to sit
This Unlocking Landscapes contribution has been written by Pam Smith, Garden and Parks Consultant at the National Trust and Steering Group member for the Unlocking Landscapes network.
Listen to the contribution above or read in full below.
Octavia Hill, one of the founders of the National Trust, talked about ‘the healing gift of space’ and suggested the best way to provide this was through four things. “Places to sit in, places to play in, places to stroll in, and places to spend a day in”.
At home, my favourite place to sit indoors is outdoors, a three sided shed, filled with old camper van cushions and random decoration that was once clutter in the house but out in the shed creates a Cabinet of Curiosities, homes for spiders and random memories. The shed, under the magnolia canopy, stays dry even in heavy downpours, I look forward to the storms to sit there listening to nature amplified. I’ve created 5 different seating areas in my garden, 6 if you count the old dining room chair in the greenhouse, they are for different times of day and night and different moods. Though, I rarely sit, as I am a gardener, a potterer, a doer, daughter of a joiner and shop keeper, granddaughter of steel and mill workers, a dressmaker and caretaker. Practical, busy folk.
My grandad gave me the love of gardening, I can still smell the heat and damp of his allotment greenhouse, summer scents of tomato leaves and the winter cold, green smell of Chrysanths. There was a homemade wooden drawer treasure chest full of pavement foraged sticks from ice lollies rehomed as plant labels.
Being a gardener lightens my load, if I have one. I don’t feel the need to carry the current tokens of escape. My family joke that I rarely look at or carry my phone ‘tell mum to answer her texts’ I don’t lose hours on the laptop or even carry a book along for the train trip. Train journeys allow me to see into other’s garden sanctuaries, jigsaw pieces of others’ puzzles that fit into mine.
However, on local countryside walks I often sit, I make a mental note of good places for a picnic, place others will love. It isn’t a garden, but it is a place that has been both purposefully and accidentally created. I enjoy any landscape where I see and feel the touch of human intervention. Perhaps I like to feel someone has been there before me, making their mark which I can follow, whether that be an avenue, a fence line, a holloway or a path through a shrubbery.
I’m not a nervous walker so it can’t be about safety or the fear of getting lost, I often wander along new routes, surprised at where they come out as field hedges and footpaths distort my compass points. I often wonder why I prefer such more obviously managed landscapes. Woodland and moorland I like but it isn’t a place to wander, you need a plan. Views are either too close or too big. Perhaps it is the sense of scale? It may be my love of local history, reading landscapes and thinking about all the busy people who worked within it. Is it that seeing the evidence of the labours of the other doers and busy people I am free to sit for a while.
I love the word municipal, why do others use it as an insult? What is not to like about something that belongs to a managed city or a town? Being one of the many? An increasing number of us, over 80% in UK, are urban dwellers, together we create function and shared ownership. Rows of park benches are a symbol of municipal design. Twice they became life rafts for me, my subconscious hunting them out to allow me to stop and pause when my mind and emotions overwhelmed my legs.
I was on my way to a meeting, by bus from Bristol Station. Not sure where to get off I asked the driver to let me know. My dad phoned mistakenly thinking today was the day I was visiting mum at the hospice, I wasn’t, I was 400 miles away and I suddenly felt I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Next, I was walking down a street that ended in a park, I could see trees and on entering a bench. I sat there with no memory of getting off the bus, did the driver try to stop me? I called a friend, told them the street name and she guided me from park bench to train seat and back home.
The second time I was walking back from the school run through the local park, days before dad’s funeral. I found myself sat on a graffiti covered bench, unable to remember my way home. I sat on their words and mine, thoughts were blurred. I called my husband at work who came and met me and we walked the 4 minutes back home. I walk past that same bench now; the graffiti is still there but my words have returned.
My landscapes are to be shared with others, some here others long gone.
