THE first thing you notice about Penny Spink’s garden at Midsummer House is its ebullience. As do many of the best gardens, it reflects the character of its owner and celebrates plants in a joyous, artistic manner. It also demonstrates the enjoyment that can come from the centuriesold tradition of naming plants after people. As you walk around, Mrs Spink will point and remark: ‘Look at “Phyllis Bide” next to Princess Margareta of Denmark, she’s pretty but very prickly… I love “Corning”, she’s so delicate’ and other such asides. The second thing you notice is how immediately the garden wraps around the house like a secure embrace.
But Midsummer House is not only about plants. It has a stupendous view. It is great good fortune to create a garden with a view to one of England’s most famous sights; to be able to create two gardens with that view is a blessing. In the 1970s, Mrs Spink and her late husband, the distinguished and much loved art dealer Anthony, bought the Mill House in the tiny village of Woolstone, which nestles beneath the rolling chalk upland of White Horse Hill. They created the garden of their new home around the view up to the magical, prehistoric figure of the Uffington White Horse, etched into the chalk some 3,000 years ago, a vision captured memorably by the artist Eric Ravilious, whom Anthony so admired.
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