In 1947 photographer and designer Cecil Beaton purchased Reddish House in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire. He continued to develop his interest in gardening as he set about improving and extending the property’s grounds. One of Beaton’s most ambitious projects for the garden was to buy up the water meadows bordering the River Ebble in front of the house and create a water garden, ‘with a little private trout stream and a lake with an island, all for my own benefit’.
Flowers took centre stage in his preparations for guests at Reddish House as he filled each reception space with large decorative displays. A large cutting garden was created,and filled with roses, peonies, and irises. Beaton added panels of square trellis onto wooden frames above each bed to support the growing flowers, keeping them straight ready for cutting. He built a flower room in the house, which he filled with his vases, trugs for collecting flowers and wicker baskets for transporting them to photoshoots or down to his London house.
This work was painted in the 1960s illustrates Beaton’s cutting garden filled with nasturtiums and morning glory flowers.
