Special Invitation

We were delighted to take part in this highly curated sustainable flower festival in the stunning Strawberry Hill House - Horace Walpole’s masterpiece, supported by Flowers From The Farm. Conceived and curated by the Leigh Chappell and Janne Ford, both exceptional designers, we were invited, alongside others whom we greatly admire, to adorn a space with our English flowers.

We took on Walpole’s Great Parlour; with its stunning oil paintings, gleaming gilt frames and beautiful dry elm floor boards, it was the perfect foil for the Midsummer Nights Dream brief we had created. The sense of playfulness and fun of Strawberry Hill Gothic coupled with its muscularity creates a potent mix for the designer; Horace Walpole’s fantasy creation was quite the visitor attraction even in his lifetime.Many consider it the best example of Georgian gothic, or Gothick, revival taste. It was a backdrop that was a Hortus Poeticus dream. So we decided to found our installation too in the landscape of dreams and moonlight. 

Picture credit Janne Ford ©

We imagined a late summer’s evening lovers’ walk, through coppiced hazel woodland lit by moonlight, with overhanging branches and scented rambling roses before stumbling upon a pair of urns as if to decorate a romantic rendezvous for a secret tryst. Our understory, at the base of the urns, was mossy with woodland ferns, bracken and jasmine trails, our upper story more flower and colour full as buds and stems reached and found the light. 

Thank you to @leigh.chappell.flowers and @jannelford for inviting us.