Angerstein Lane Revisited

I had a tip-off that the gorgeous adopted garden in Angerstein Lane which marked the very first of my Favourite Front Gardens series.

Deep in the middle of the lovely, leafy pathway between St John's Park and Shooters Hill Road it's easy to miss if you're unfamiliar with the area. The owner of the tiny, low-lying cottage has quietly adopted a piece of what is, frankly wild land, turning it into a dappled oasis of beauty.

It doesn't photograph very well (well -okay - it probably does - but I'm no photographer as you can see from these shots) so you have to see it for yourself. It's currently full of forget-me-nots, punctuated by tulips, but this jumble of cottage garden classics is clearly for all seasons. I can already see paeonies poking through and ferns uncurling for later in the year.

This is a wonderful example of a gardener without a garden finding a way, somehow, anyhow, to express himself. It shouldn't work - when he first took it over it must have just been a bit of scrubland that looked far too overshadowed by trees and the giant houses surrounding it (I'm assuming the cottage itself was originally outbuildings servicing the posh piles) - but it's a lush little corner of greenery that, for my money, can hold its own with Greenwich Park's grand herbaceous border.

Angerstein Lane should really also go in the new Country Lanes series - a leafy, lovely way to slip from Greenwich to Blackheath - albeit a bit of a trek for people in West Greenwich. A trek well worth making, I promise.

The Buddha of Gurdon Road

Gurdon Road, SE7

By rights this should be in my Favourite Front Gardens section.

It's an unassuming little Victorian end of terrace house with its own little Zen garden, quietly tucked behind a screen of willow trellis. The gatepost has this delightful little head - I don't know which god it is - but it looks peaceful and that will do for me.

Behind, in a little gravel area, is another cross-legged god (I'm assuming it's Buddha, but my ignorance level is high here...) surrounded by miniature bamboo in pots and, in the summer, one of those little shiny roller-ball fountains. At the moment, it's tucked up in bed for the winter, so try taking a look in a few week's time when Spring looks a bit more likely than now.

A little bit of peace in a Charlton garden. Ahh.

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We've been a bit slow on Fave Front Gardens this year - presumably the weather's not really inspired people as much as usual. But Benedict told me about one in King George Street which is as lovely as it is simple. He sent me these pics to prove it.

This little cottage could be in a little provincial town, but it isn't. It's in the centre of Greenwich and a reminder that you can get a little bit of the countryside pretty much anywhere. There are a few perennials in there, but for the show, they've concentrated on just a couple of annuals - big, floppy poppies and sweet peas, which act as a very neat 'net curtain.' A profusion of summer, to remind us that yes, we did actually get a bit of one...

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Well - not quite - but at the moment it is someone's front garden - though it's possible it will be available to all soon.

I've been watching the former graveyard at Devonport House for some months now. It always used to be (and frankly, still is at the moment) a case of having to sneak around the back if you wanted to get a closer look at the few monuments that still exist there (most were moved to the charming East Greenwich Pleasaunce in mid Victorian times.)

It was, I confess, with mixed emotions I saw paths and fences spring up in the grounds, in preparation for opening them to the public. Obviously, it will be nice not to have to tiptoe about getting muddy boots and risking a ticking-off just to take a peek at Admiral Hardy's Tomb and, I'll give them their dues, they've done it really well - with little avenues of baby box which will knit to form low hedges and areas of long grasses and wavy flowers.

But part of me rather liked the fact that there was a little wild-ish area in the middle of Greenwich, a secret area, despite the fact that it was almost entirely on view to the world, but somehow still remained invisible because it was behind railings. I liked the lush green grass, growing right up to the monuments, the peaceful 'forbidden' air that made sneaking-in a delicious challenge.

What has been created is lovely, I'll grant you. It's tasteful and elegant - and I look forward to wandering through the grounds. It also has the added bonus of softening the somewhat severe brickwork of Devonport House.

But it's also losing something, IMHO. OK, this was hardly a wilderness - the grass was cut and there was never any chance of it being neglected. But it was somewhere that needed a second look - that didn't yield up its charms to every visitor that walked past.

Now it's safe. We have wide (albeit lovely) paths, sensible (charming) streetlights and sturdy (elegant) railings around each monument. It's well done. But would I have swapped its former secluded peace for the chance to have another formal gardens? I just don't know.

Of course at the moment, it's the worst of both worlds. The taming has been done, but we still don't get to wander the paths in what little watery sunshine that remains to us. I've checked the Cathedral Group website, also the rather dull Devonport House site but I can find no reference to the grounds at all, though there's a large-enough banner proclaiming that they're creating space for the people...

I'm wondering if it's some Section 106 agreement - it had to be done - but nothing was said about actually ever opening it.

What do you think? Am I just being a miserable old Phantom? Do you welcome a new park - or are you like me, secretly rather fond of a place you could see, but not actually visit - but that retained a quiet that was somehow away from the hustle and bustle of central Greenwich. And does anyone have any idea whether or not this will ever be opened? If it's going to be tamed we might as well have the use of it...

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Trinity Buoy Wharf,E14



We haven't had a favourite front garden for ages. Maybe this is because the weather's been so bloomin' duff that I haven't been out looking for them - or maybe nobody wants to do much in the way of primping and preening their greenery in the rain.

But I said I'd bang on about Trinity Buoy Wharf a bit more, and today, I want to show you what a bunch of creative people do with no fixed gardens.

Trinity Buoy Wharf (not actually in, but I like to think "honorary" Greenwich) was basically an experimental station built along the Thames to test out lighthouse technology before it was used in really dangerous areas. There are some fab stories about it - one of my favourites is where they'd fire up a new type of bulb and some poor sod would have to leg-it round to Shooters Hill to see if they could see the light - and famous people - Michael Faraday, no less, who worked there, but that's for another day. A dark winter's day, perhaps, when stories of bravery and derring-do on the high seas are all the more dramatic.

Trinity Buoy Wharf has a fascinating life these days too. It's inhabited by creative types - with wonderful installations and art projects (see Aluna for one of my favourites) - and a great diner - all of which I'll also get onto in good time. They warrant looking at in more detail than one post.

The place is a wonderful mix of the old - Victorian warehouses, light-ships and the lighthouse itself - and the new - a pile of containers, painted bright colours and inhabited by arty types. And there's nothing arty types like better than creating exciting plant projects.

All over the place pieces of art mingle with found objects, juxtaposed in curious ways, both inside and outside the workshops of potters, mosaic artists and sculptors. Strange inventions and old objets d'art and honest tools mingle together - and grow from and alongside plants. Gay annuals and bright bedding jostle with runner beans and courgette plants, tomatoes and herbs.

This place is great. On the first weekend of every month most of the installations are open, and it's best to go along then. It's currently a bit of a trek to get to - you have to either drive or go to Canning Town on the Jubilee and take a 15 minute walk. But occasionally, just occasionally, they have a "festival" day and there's a free boat service from the O2 - and if you see one of those advertised, GO. It's a great afternoon out. The website is a bit out of date - it's still advertising the last festival - but I checked London Open House Weekend and it's going to be open then.

Laura Williams, the artist responsible for Aluna, tells me that since the Thames Clippers are now based around there, they can pretty much hop on a Clipper any time they want to go across to Greenwich. Wouldn't it be great if there was a boat service every weekend the art is open?

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Flip sides of a coin today, folks, or, to be more precise, flip sides of a block.

Some of the Phantom's fave front gardens are very formal, others, I just love for their sheer exuberance - and this is one of them.

Here, in King William Walk, just by the Cutty Sark, lives a little house with owners that love to put on a show. Every inch of their garden, despite its having a grille over a basement, is covered in pots and tubs of colourful plants, both bedding and permanent.

Window boxes full of pelagoniums, tall tobacco plants, yuccas, trailers - all sorts, in all sorts of containers, offset by hedging and lush dark greens - and, of course, the fabulous Regency/post Regency buildings. A real joy.


Which makes me all the sadder when I turn the corner into College Approach. Same buildings; perhaps even better setting - but look at it. One measly creeper and a few bin bags, the sum total of front gardenry going on here.

This row of fabulous buildings could look absolutely amazing. But they don't. What a shame.