Photo a day...22nd June.

A Pleasance for the Rose & Lily Queen.

Another of the courtyard gardens. Rather strange but others might love it.....

The Chelsea show guide says....
"In 1631 Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles 1, acted out the part of Flora in Ben Jonson's masque Chloridia. She loved acting so much that even at the height of the Civil War, she insisted on taking time out to learn her lines. This design, with a backdrop designed by Inigo Jones, is her outdoor theatre garden, and offers a taste of courtly drama.

Flora, the goddess of flowers, was sent from heaven to give the earth flowers, to reflect the presence of stars in the sky. Flora sits on a lily throne between heaven and earth. Allegorically, the Queen had the divine right and ability to mediate between heaven and earth. The parterre is based on a design for a bigger garden by Andre Mollet, the Queen's favourite, discovered in the RHS's Lindley Library.

John Tradescant Junior's tombstone, at the Museum of Garden History in London, refers to his "Rose and Lily Queen"; the French lily had married the English rose. Land around palaces was open to the public, but there were small private gardens known as pleasances in close proximity to the palace for the royal family to enjoy. So this garden is a pleasance, for the Rose and Lily Queen."




















I didn't get many photos of it because there actually wasn't much to photograph.....!