Thenford: The Creation of an English Garden

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I can tell you exactly when I feel it most,” Michael says, “on a cold January day when I’m out shooting, and I say to myself: ‘Why am I doing this? The beautifully illustrated book has over 320 pages with both professional photographs and private family images.

Oh, God, the little man who’s slightly in disgrace now, but I imagine that’s why she was given the job. At that moment, in the driveway visible through the window behind her, I see a rangy 83-year-old in corduroy trousers and purple socks, his luxuriant hair buffeted by the wind, whistling past in a golf buggy.For now, they’re describing the consequences of their great project’s exposure to the world with some of the same reluctance.

The garden at Thenford has an arboretum which contains more than 3,500 different species of trees and shrubs, including rare plants which were wild-collected by well known plantsmen including Roy Lancaster OBE, Allen Coombes, Keith Rushforth and Chris Chadwell. Since the photos are old press photographs they may have scratches, lines, or other wears of time, which just underlines the authenticity and age of the photos. When he is asked about his greatest political legacy, Michael is fond of answering that his garden will outlast all of it. Taken though I am with the image of Tarzan taking potshots from the golf buggy, I suspect it’s probably mostly the work of Thenford’s dozen gardeners. What comes shining through in this delightful book and also in the flesh, is just how much pleasure the Heseltines have had from watching their Thenford dream take shape' Daily Mail.How will it play that Lord Heseltine once squared up to a drunken lurcher, not deemed much of a threat by his bodyguards, and smacked him in the face? I very much hope that one of the lessons we as a nation will learn from the last couple of years is the therapeutic effects of gardens and greenery. An image arrives of a prehistoric political titan, mace in hand, doggedly propelling his stone-age vehicle onwards with his feet. Among the mainly modern British sculptures on show are Elisabeth Frink’s naked Standing Man (‘he’s the husband of an acquaintance of mine’, she comments) and Philip Jackson’s Reading Chaucer (a young woman in a medieval gown and pointed hat seated on a bench with a book).

She means Alan Yentob and his wife Philippa Walker, who, it should be said, has a long and serious list of documentary credits to her name. But now they are on the run and, as a result, says Anne, “we are hearing and seeing all sorts of birds that we didn’t before.SEE the BACKSIDE OF the PHOTO - many times the image for sale will present stamps, dates, and other publication details - these marks attest to and increase the value of the press photos. Love Island All Stars viewers praise Sophie Piper for 'snitching' on scheming Georgia Steel during secret flirty chat with Tom Clare: 'He's gonna tell the villa!