While the Charterhouse is closed to the public, some of the Brothers are kindly taking on some of the day-to-day gardening jobs on our seven-acre site, as none of the gardening team are currently there.  Good for distraction, good for mental and for physical health!  And just lovely to watch the garden grow!  We are very much missing opening our gardens for Chelsea Fringe – but here’s our way of sharing the pleasure that gardening brings – especially during lockdown.

Here are some reflections from Brother Gillie:

“The ‘lockdown’  has been very hard for many people, but I am lucky enough to live with the beautiful Charterhouse Gardens – in which to relax, exercise, or, more recently, work.  Being engaged in trying to help keep the gardens ticking over, while our head gardener Kate is on furlough, has made the time fly, and I convince myself that I certainly do not need to subject myself to any extra Zoom exercise classes.  I am genuinely tired at the end of the day, but have spent these unusually sunny days, watching swifts searching for homes in the ancient Charterhouse walls, listening to  birds singing while I work, or pausing to capture a photograph of a bumblebee on an allium bloom, and I do feel truly blessed to have derived this pleasure from what could have been very tedious.”

Posted in association with Chelsea Fringe.

NB if you would like to help support us now – and secure your place on a tour or at our Open Gardens when they are running again we would really appreciate it – you can book our Support Tickets here.