Shhh! Private bench chat going on ...

Benches at the Chelsea Physic Garden

A rather prosaic bench inscription (although the moss is nicely buttery, it has to be said!)...


This one was more personal, I like the heart carved in the wood (it made me think of lovers' hearts and intials on trees) and also the wine glasses clinking (under the seat, next to the plaque) ...



It was hard to resist going to sit on these, although the rain stopped play ...



And I loved the shape of this one ...

Consider the bench book

Thanks to Garden Monkey, for drawing my attention to this link to the Domestik Goddess's post on garden benches, and the reference to Mirabel Osler's book on The Garden Bench.

The always interesting and normally reliable Garden Monkey however wondered whether a whole book on garden benches isn't just a little indulgent.

Hah, I say, particularly with this blurb ...

Here are seats for languor, for conversation or momentary sloth, contemplative benches, benches for lovers, seats for scents, secrecy, twilight or shelter.

Which in my opinion makes it quite clear that just one book is not enough to contain all the poetry even a common-or-garden bench can inspire. Bring on the sequel.

(Interestingly, using the Domestik Goddess link to Amazon.com, the book costs over $80, but with Amazon.co.uk, it's a snip at one penny. Does this mean we value benches more in the UK, or less? I wish I could see the book's cover.)

Bench picnic

And do you know what the best thing is about this bench laden down by good French market food? I got to eat it - just yesterday!

Stay sleepless in Singapore

It's cheaper....


WHAT was supposed to be a free 15-minute nap on a park bench turned into a costly snooze for one Singaporean.
The New Paper on Tuesday reported that a 62-year-old, who only wanted to be known as Mr Kassim, was fined $200 when he dozed off on a Sun Plaza Park bench while taking shelter from the rain.

The National Parks Board (NParks) fined the private bus driver for having misused the park facility by sleeping on the bench.

Saddle up now ....

Many thanks to Beth for her photograph of this bench, found in Park City, Utah:



Do please send me your bench pictures - I have this vision of a map of benches from all over the world, so we can have a nice 'quiet sit down' wherever we are!

Secrets and benches

You never know what you might find on a park bench...

Benches at Great Dixter

Whispering bench

This bench is in West Fairfield park, Pennsylvania, as part of a monument to the area's Civil War military and naval heroes. "A person sitting at one end of the bench can turn and whisper into the wall behind him. A second person sitting at the opposite end can clearly hear what is being said."

State meetings on benches...

An extract from Trea Martyn's book, Elizabeth in the Garden:

In the late 1580's, Elizabeth commissioned Richard Dixon to carve four six-foot-long seats for the gardens at Greenwich. According to the Office of Works accounts, the seats were 'turned with rails and baluster with a lion and a dragon supporting the queen's badges, with two arches under the seats and two elbows to lean, one carved with pediments crested for the weather carved with teh rose and crown with the Queen's letters, with an ostrich, a tassel and an eagle crowned holding a sceptre crowned.' Numerous new seats were added to the gardens and orchard. There were long seats for the garden, one in a 'jasper colour', which gave the appearance of marble and symbolised chastity. In the orchard, three seats, seven benches and several arbours were repainted in jasper, and a canopy was added to the Queen's seat. Four seats in the orchard were painted the colour of brick, and a 'back board for her Majesty to sit against' was painted in diverse colours and gilded.

Towards the end of the century, Portington, the Master Carpenter, made a 'fair standing seat in the mulberry tree garden and new seat with four pillars under the same tree for her Majesty.' The seat was eight feet long and six feet wide, 'standing upon terms arched and carved.' It was painted 'with ash-colour and jasper like rance [a kind of marble, or a red colour varied with veins and spots of blue and white] in water colour'. The four pillars made a pavilion, built around the mulberry tree. Joiners added six five-foot-long and five-foot-high seats with balusters and 'a carved pediment on top' painted jasper and gilded. In 1600, nineteen seats in the orchard and garden were given a new coat of paint. The following year, one last seat was made for the garden: it had a brick base painted a stone colour and a blue lead-covered roof.

The impression is that Elizabeth built a suite of outdoor meeting rooms in her gardens at Greenwich. We might imagine her conducting state business there, recalling her meetings with Cecil in the garden at Theobalds concerning the war in the Netherlands, during the fateful summer of 1587.

Stirring stuff. I haven't managed to find a photograph of what these benches might have looked like, but here's the Shakespeare garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. However, this is very definitely not a queenly bench:



Better is this one at the Elizabethan gardens also in America.



I don't feel too bad at having to go out of the country to find Elizabethan garden references, because Trea Martyn says she had to also in researching her wonderful book. It makes me wonder if any bench has been listed yet?

ps here's some Jasper for you to see the colour ...