Fairy nice!

It’s not just the Chelsea Flower Show that has all the best greenery at the moment.  This beautiful walled garden is a few minutes walk from the centre of Croydon in Park Hill Park and is maintained by volunteers from the local community.  

The ‘castle’ you can see in the background is actually a water tower built during the 19^th century to serve the large increase in the town’s population.

As the population expands in the 21^st century too, there are more new shoots sprouting up near the station on Cherry Orchard Road in the form of new blocks of flats.  Or as they always seem to be known these days - luxury apartments.

Park Hill Park is hosting a ‘Flower Fairies Festival’ this summer celebrating the work of artist Cicely Mary Barker who created the original books and grew up in the Croydon area.  More details at http://www.croydonheritagefestival.co.uk/Calendar/2203/Families%20and%20Children/Flower-Fairies-Festival

Fairy nice!

2 pm, 22-09-2012, Geffrye Museum

19x19 cm, oil on panel, 2012

It rained on the day of painting at the Geffrye Museum so the garden pergola was of great help...

2 pm, 22-09-2012, Geffrye Museum

Sketching period gardens at the Geffreye Museum

Geffreye Museum Gardens - April 2012
20th Century Period Garden (Edwardian 1900 -1914) in foreground
pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils on Arches HP, 9" x 12"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell - all rights reserved

The Geffreye Museum is a museum of the home and garden between 1600 and the present day in Hoxton.  There are a set of period gardens to match the period rooms.

What I like best about Spring is the very fresh crisp vibrant leaf colours on the trees which tend to dull down as the months progress. 


This is the view - on a showery day - of the 20th century - Edwardian Garden (1900-1914) via the windows of the extremely nice cafe.  I wasn't too successful in getting the subtle and very pale purple colours of the wisteria over the pergola (bottom right).  The dark elongated pyramid structure in the middle is a Pelargonium Pyramid in the Mid-Late Victorian Garden (1860-1890)


See The gardens at the Geffreye Museum on my sketchbook blog for more about my visit and the museumand its gardens

Sketching period gardens at the Geffreye Museum