THE BEST Our first Landmark holiday was at Ascog on the Isle of Bute, when Dexter was four months old – now he is nineteen.  With Dexter, Bob and me, Bill and Margot with Geordie three years later, Ann who was at school with me in the 50s and Mike, and others from time to time, we have been to a Landmark property almost every year since.  Margot says it’s how she’s got to know the countryside. Every Landmark whether castle, farmhouse, townhouse, stable or mansion is a dilapidated historic property renovated by the Landmark Trust and then let for holidays.   Without exception, each is...

It’s like returning to a discarded lover who has stayed faithful through the years.  I was just bored with roses.  They were so damn flowery.  Decades ago, I was told to spray with chemicals to stop the mildew, blackspot, you name it, ‘to keep them clean’.  I never did.  But now I see you once more and know that in fact I love you. You have such variety you are never boring.  The east wall is papered with Pink Perpetue, symmetrical and much admired,  scentless but whose petals neatly fall. Best is Cecile Brunner, a glorious climber over an arch.  Every year, generous and profuse, with...

‘Dulwich?  How dull!’  joked Bob when I was going there.  So I looked up the name, and found Dulwich originates from Dill – it was the place where dill grew, where they went to harvest and infuse it in gripe water for infant and other ailments. Suddenly I saw a map of England, alive with all the plants which give places their name.  Not just dill at Dulwich.  Alresford, where I live is the ford with alders.  Woods of oak, ash, beech and birch abound at Oakhampton, Ashridge, Beecham, and Birkenhead.  Bexhill is the hill where box grows, and aspens flourish at Apsley.  The ghosts of elms...

In Ely Cathedral there are at least Green Men and animals, with greenery spewing from their mouths and sometimes eyes.  What do they mean?  They come  from the 11th to the 15th centuries, though I have seen a late Roman mosaic Green Man in Istanbul’s mosaic museum. Some say they symbolize pagan nature, always in torment, and always sited near the west end.  However, in Ely they are mostly at the east end, in the choir and near the high altar.  You can spot them in churches and cathedrals all over England. Is he ‘Jack of the Green’ celebrated on May Day?  A pre-Christian nature...