A garden of the mind

Developed over 30 years by an art historian, this thought-provoking garden is filled with Classical references

- Noel Kingsbury

Plaz Metaxu, Witheridge, Devon The home of Alasdair Forbes

THE farmland rolls up and down, interrupted by hedges and trees. There is a small lake and a haze of reeds showing where the valley bottom is damper. It all looks typically Devonian. Yet a closer examination reveals oddities: a cluster of narrow slate pillars, figures on the ground made by cobbles, clipped hedges that enclose irregular spaces. Welcome to Plaz Metaxu, the life's work of art historian Alasdair Forbes, who moved here in 1992.

Until now, there were two recently made gardens of note that could be called 'gardens of the mind', in that their physical structures, planting and modifications of the landscape are all subordinated to a conceptual, rather than merely horticultural or aesthetic idea: Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh and Charles Jencks's The Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack House, Dumfriesshire. Plaz Metaxu deserves to join them, although it is as different from them as they are from each other.

All are, to a large part, mysterious and lack accompanying explanation, but, of the three, it is Plaz Metaxu that is the most visually pleasing, the most harmonious and therefore, perhaps, the most accessible to the uninitiated. Its scale helps, as none of the interventions in the landscape crowds in, nothing dominates. Instead, all its components are subsumed in a mellow green whole.

To begin to understand Plaz Metaxu, it helps to bear in mind that each part of the garden is named after a Classical deity. Each deity acts as a muse for the garden's creator, as well as providing us with a clue to its meaning. From this basis, Mr Forbes spins out a web of allusions and connections, drawn from a lifetime's study. 'I wanted the garden to be as inclusive as possible of all the cultural stimuli I have tried to absorb,' he says.