Horatio's Gardens

My particular restorative floral green space

 Chelsea Physic Garden established in 1673.

A perfect day weather-wise with the anticipated cascade of notes from ‘my’ visiting blackbird to charm the air. His intermittent daily serenade is predictably and refreshingly nourishing. I sat on my terrace which is looking delightful now, for coffee then a reading break and I noticed in the weekend Financial Times magazine, a lovely article entitled Mind, Body And Soul, by Clare Coulson, about the therapeutic power of green spaces and gardens. I had no idea that in 1673, when London’s Chelsea Physic Garden was established by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, within a walled four acre plot close to the River Thames, the healing power of plants was not merely acknowledged but established as an intrinsic part of life. Gardens were viewed as restorative and contemplative spaces. In truth, in the seventeenth century Britain was chiefly an agricultural and rural society and though many did not own, or have access, to a beautiful garden, the green and open countryside was on the doorstep, as it were, of the majority of citizens who, unknowingly, reaped the benefits.

In Thomas Bewick’s Memoir, he begins Chapter 2 thus:

“From the little Window at my Bed head, I noticed all the varying seasons of the year and when the Spring put in, I felt charmed at the music of Birds, which strained their little throats to proclaim it.”

The boy who would become the famous artist-engraver, was born in August 1753,and lived in Cherry-burn House near the small Village or Hamlet of Eltringham in the Newcastle area. Though his talent was prodigious, his early life was spent almost entirely in ordinary, every day pursuits in the nearby countryside which he loved and which helped to form him, as it did his friends and family. His series of superb wood engravings for his two major works of natural history: General History of Quadrupeds and History of British Birds were considered to have aroused a huge contemporary popular interest in natural history. Thomas’s love of, and absorption in, the natural world was unconscious but central to his youthful experience and growth. One would like to think that this immersion in the great, green outdoors fed his growing creativity.

 Thomas Bewick 1753-1828

Gardens can transport a person and revive the psyche. I derive great pleasure from working on my terrace, which is really a garden in miniature; from the searching for plants; the actual planting and placing; the changing of mind and position of pots; the watering and dead-heading; the evening stroll around my tiny estate and the blessed sitting out there in the sun or shade, to read or write. A plus for me now is that a terrace asks for much less physical effort, which is a blessing in fact! But the amount of calmness derived and the aesthetic beauty inhaled, the silent delight in just being there, do not depend on size and effort in the upkeep; just the walled green space, presently be-floralled and perfect, is enough.

 Bewick illustrating the extreme contentment
of immersion in a green space. Albeit with
the added charms of tobacco and beer.

The benefits of green spaces are increasingly recognised in the provision of therapeutic gardens attached to hospices and specialist care centres. I read last year, I think, of Horatio’s Garden Charity which creates and nurtures green sanctuaries chiefly in N.H.S. spinal-injury centres, to improve the psychological health of patients who may spend months in hospital. These life-affirming gardens are in memory of Horatio

 Horatio Chapple

Chapple whose idea it originally was. Horatio, who wanted to become a doctor, volunteered to work in 2010/11 in Salisbury Hospital where his father, David, is a spinal surgeon in the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre. Horatio asked why there was no outside green space for long-term patients to enjoy. In discussion with his father, Horatio came up with the idea of a therapeutic garden and he designed a questionnaire to discover exactly what patients wanted. Tragically, Horatio (17) was killed the following year, by a polar bear on a school expedition and this prompted a flood of donations to establish what came to be called Horatio’s Garden, designed by Cleve West, a notable, award-winning garden designer, at Salisbury Hospital. Salisbury has proven to be the first of a series of Horatio’s Gardens attached chiefly to spinal injury treatment centres throughout the country. The unbearable poignancy of this story, nonetheless, illustrates at least, the considerable achievement in the splendid realisation of therapeutic gardens available to an increasing number of spinal treatment patients with huge benefits for them. A powerful memorial fitting for a young man of empathy and vision.

 Horatio's Garden, London