England is famous for its gardens, among them the lovely Stowe Landscape Garden north of London in Buckinghamshire https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe/features/the-garden-at-stowe. A National Trust property, the magnificent mansion, once the home of Lord Viscount Cobham, is now home to Stowe School.

The property, which contains 250 acres of gardens and 750 of parkland, is considered to have influenced gardening all over the Western World, and also boasts of inspiring the work of poets and artists for centuries. According to the garden’s website, Lord Cobham designed the gardens to reflect his beliefs about politics and morality. There are three “ways” one can go – a path of “vice” (past Greek gods, the Garden of Love, with temples related to stories of female temptresses), a path of “virtue,” with temples dedicated to the great men of British history, and the Path of Liberty, the longest walk, with temples that depict Britain’s dominance in the eighteenth century.

The day I visited was breathtakingly beautiful, the lights and shadows dramatically falling on the temples and statues situated about various areas, dappling and sparkling the small ponds “Eleven Acre Lake” and “Octagon Lake.” The entire space is designed so that as one wanders from one area to another, there’s no sense of what will be around the next bend, lending a constant sense of discovery. There are wide expanses and large vistas contrasting with small intimate spaces and gardens, such as “Grecian Valley” and “Elysian Fields.”

As I walked I thought about the process of designing this magnificent but constructed world out of fields, woods, and ponds and what it means to impose a grand vision on nature’s own. I found myself wondering where the line falls between nurturing/improving on nature and the hubris of humans who feel the imperative to impose a vision on the natural world.

A drawing of a house is what drew author Henry James  (1843-1916), an American who lived in Britain, to the the historic seaport town of Rye, in East Sussex, England. Enchanted by the drawing, he went in search of the house, and fell in love with it. That house was Lamb House, a modest Georgian building on a quiet crooked cobblestoned street.  A few years later he was able to lease it, and subsequently lived there for decades, finding it a refuge from the hustle and bustle and pressures of London.

Medieval Town of Rye

James called Rye “a russet Arcadia” and indeed the town’s reddish bricks give it a russet glow. The town has both produced and attracted many fiction writers. After James other writers lived at Lamb House, including several of my favorites: Rumer Godden (1907-98) and E.F. Benson (1867-1940). This house and town figure prominently in Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels.

Rye is quite beautiful, touted as one of the prettiest medieval towns in England, with narrow, cobblestone streets; charming cottages, many with red roofs or thatch; plus many small intriguing shops: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Rye-East-Sussex/

Lamb House

The Lamb house, one of the town’s historic residences, is now owned by the National Trust https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lamb-house. It is located at the elbow of a street that wanders uphill to a nearby church. It’s only recently been opened to the public, and I came upon it quite by chance when visiting the town. Like many others in this tiny medieval village, the house was small but beautifully proportioned. It had just the air of elegance and grace I associate with James’s work.

I stood in the tiny bedroom looking out on the houses and gardens that James would have gazed upon, touched the very desk at which he wrote what are considered his masterpieces: Wings of a Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl.  What serendipity!