Sunday, May 31, 2020

Garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street

No Swan So Fine: + commons


[[File:Downing Street garden path edge (7361631644).jpg|thumb|right|The path edge of the garden at Downing Street.]]

The '''garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street''' is an 'L' shaped garden 0.5 acres in size behind the official residences of the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]] and the [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]], [[10 Downing Street|10]] and [[11 Downing Street]] in the Whitehall district of the [[City of Westminster]] in central London. The garden has been gradually developed over the 20th century by sucessive Prime Ministers.

==History==
The terrace and garden have provided a casual setting for many gatherings of First Lords with foreign dignitaries, Cabinet ministers, guests, and staff. Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]], for example, hosted a farewell reception in 2007 for his staff on the terrace. [[John Major]] announced his 1995 resignation as leader of the Conservative Party in the garden.<ref name="Summerley2015"/> Churchill called his secretaries the "garden girls" because their offices overlook the garden. It was also the location of the first press conference announcing the Coalition Government between [[David Cameron]]'s [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]] and [[Nick Clegg]]'s [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>

Blair held a press conference with [[Bill Clinton]] in the garden. Press conferences at the [[White House]] are frequently held at the [[White House Rose Garden]]. It is believed that the similarity of the occasion has given rise to the 'rose garden' nickname which Summerley feels is "inaccurate".<ref name="Summerley2015"/>

In 2012 [[Michael Craig Martin]] loaned his 2011 sculpture of a large red lightbulb, ''Bulb'', for installation in the garden.<ref name='GACRReport'></ref> [[Barbara Hepworth]]'s 1968 sculpture ''Hollow Form with Inner Form'' is situated in the garden, on loan from the [[Government Art Collection]].<ref name="Summerley2015"/><ref name='WorkingArt'></ref><ref name='HollowArt'></ref>
[[File:Downing Street garden balcony (7176412585).jpg|thumb|right|The view of the garden from the balcony]]
In October 1929 ''The Times'' reported on the retirement after 40 years of Downing Street's head gardener, Harry Simpson. Having originally started as a gardener in St James Park, he had worked in Downing Street under every Prime Minister from William Gladstone to Ramsay Macdonald.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> An item in ''The Times'' diary in 1989 reported that Thatcher had belived she had heard a nightingale in the garden. ''The Sun'' journalist David Kemp recorded the bird who was then identifed as a song thrush by the RSPB.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>

The garden cost [[The Royal Parks]] £29,137 in half-yearly maintenance in the six months after the [[2010 United Kingdom general election|2010 general election]].<ref name=Teleg11>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>

The garden has been used for numerous events honouring various public bodies. A party to mark the 100th anniversary of the [[Brownies (Scouting)|Brownies]] in 2014. Cameron and [[Barack Obama]] held a barbecue for military personnel in the garden in 2011.<ref name="Summerley2015"/>

A special edition of the [[BBC Radio 4]] programme ''[[Gardeners' Question Time]]'' was broadcast from [[Downing Street]] in December 2016 and featured an interview with the head gardener of the 10 Downing Street garden.<ref name=Teleg16>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>

The garden has been opened to the public on six occassions as part of the Open Garden Squares Weekend organised by the [[London Parks and Gardens Trust]].<ref name='LPGT'></ref>
[[File:20th February 2013 (8492730336).jpg|thumb|right|A view of the rear of 10 and 11 Downing Street from the garden]]
==Design==
Roy Strong described the garden as "one of London's hidden gems". Victoria Summerley, writing in ''Great Gardens of London'' felt that the garden "would not win any medals for garden design" and that the design of the garden was "not an exercise in metropolitan chic or horticultral bling" but instead reflected the features of an "archetypal British back garden" including roses, a shaded area, a large lawn and raised vegetable beds.<ref name="Summerley2015"/> Summerley observed the evolution of the garden's design, noting that in 1964 it featured only a "very straightforward boring layout of lawn" with a "meagre border around the edge" as evidenced in a photograph of [[Harold wilson]]'s cabinet taken in the garden.<ref name="Summerley2015"/> The shape of the garden has remained unchanged since its creation. The garden's simple design of largely lawn with mature trees, rose beds and flowering shrubs remained unchanged for several years.<ref name='LPGT'/>

The garden behind originally backed on to [[St James's Park]], as evidenced in [[George Lambert (English painter)|George Lambert]]'s 1736-1740 painting of the garden in the collection of the [[Museum of London]]. The painting depicts two "gentlemen in wigs", one of whom is believed to be [[Hugh Walpole]].<ref name="Summerley2015"></ref> Lambert's painting depiects rectilinear borders and a "formal grass parterre with small, box-edged beds filled with topiary, flowering plants and dwarf fruit trees".<ref name="ParkerBetlyon2006"></ref><ref name=Mail12/> In 1736, in the first reference to the garden, it was written that "a piece of garden ground...hath been lately made and fitted up at the Charge...of the Crown" with "a piece of garden ground scituate in his Majestys park of St. James's, & belonging & adjoining to the house now inhabited by the Right Honourable the Chancellour of his Majestys Exchequer".<ref name=Mail12/><ref name='LPGT'/>

Tubs of flowers line the steps from the terrace; around the walls are rose beds with flowering and evergreen shrubs.<ref name="Jones 180"/><ref>Seldon, p. 46.</ref> (See North elevation of Number 10 with steps leading to the garden<ref>[https://ift.tt/3gFN6Uk figure0748-117-a], british-history.ac.uk</ref>)<ref>British History Online, From: '[https://ift.tt/2ZRMrJy Plate 117: No. 10, Downing Street: elevation and general view]', Survey of London: volume 14: St Margaret, Westminster, part III: Whitehall II (1931), pp. 117. Date accessed: 21 July 2008.</ref> The terrace features lead planters inscribed with '1666' and 'CR' (an abbrevation of 'Carolus Rex').<ref name="Summerley2015"/>

The [[bird table]] in the garden was donated by the BBC childrens televsion programme ''[[Blue Peter]]'', an addition to the garden that Strong felt was "more appropriate for a between-the-wars semi" and "wrong for a Georgian townhouse".<ref name="Summerley2015"/><ref name=Mail12/> The pond was built by the [[Wildlife Trust]] in 2000.<ref name="Summerley2015"/> Strong described the pond as a "hideous hedged enclosure was filled with marginal water plants".<ref name=Mail12/>

The third shell launched in the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]]'s [[Downing Street mortar attack|mortar attack on Downing Street]] exploded in the garden, leaving a 1 meter crater. A woodland garden was created around the crater with cherry trees and [[daphne odora]].<ref name="Summerley2015"/>

The [[rose bed]]s were commissisoned by [[Margaret Thatcher]]. They were planted with [[David C. H. Austin|David Austin]] roses including a rose named for Thatcher herself.<ref name="Summerley2015"/>

A play area for the Cameron's children with a climbing frame and slide was built in the garden during David Cameron's premiership. [[Roy Strong]] described the addition of the play area as "ghastly".<ref name="Summerley2015"/>

Since the advent of the 21st century the design of garden has reflected enviromental concerns and features introduced have included a rose walk, box shaped beds and borders and curved paths. These features were introduced under the premiership of [[Tony Blair]]. Additions included a gothic arch framing a garden seat.<ref name=Mail12/>

[[Gordon Brown|Gordon]] and [[Sarah Jane Brown]] installed a [[Kitchen garden#Vegetable garden|vegetable patch]] in the garden in 2009 after being prompted by [[Michelle Obama]], who had intiated the [[White House Vegetable Garden]]. Obama had visited the Downing Street garden in April 2009 and told Sarah Jane Brown that "You know about the White House vegetable garden and you can do one here". Produce from the garden was served in the Downing Street staff canteen. The garden contained "strawberries, tomatoes, beetroot, parsnips, peppers, chard and courgettes" at the time of its public unveiling. The Browns were assisted by their children in planting the garden. Boxes and plants to attract bees and ladybirds were due to be installed at a later date.<ref name=Teleg09>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Writing in ''The Daily Telegraph'', Tim Walker noted that Sarah Brown's vegetable garden had become "woefully neglected" by July 2010 and was told that [[David Cameron|David]] and [[Samantha Cameron]] "had been too pre-occupied to think much about it — he with sorting out the economic mess that Gordon Brown had left him, and she with her pregnancy".<ref name=Teleg11/> Strong critiqued he vegetable garden for featuring "a pair of ugly wooden planters" which the effect of "cannot be regarded as anything other than absurd".<ref name=Mail12/>

Water for the garden is provided by an undergound tank that reuses rainwater, installed in 2009.<ref name='LPGT'/>

The historian and landscape designer [[Roy Strong]] critiqued the design and use of the garden in a 2012 article for ''[[The Daily Mail]]''.<ref name=Mail12>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> Strong felt that "we learned nothing about the garden" until the 20th century when sucessive Prime Ministers realised its potential. Strong feels that the garden has become "a prop", a process which began with the depiction of [[Margaret Thatcher]] picking tulips and accellerated with the photographing of [[John Major]] "swathed in wisteria". Such images help to present a "softened domestic image of the incumbent".<ref name=Mail12/> Strong concluded that "...we have watched it being radically transformed into an allotment, miniature wildlife park and children’s compound. God protect us from anything more".<ref name=Mail12/>

==References==


==External links==

[[Category:Downing Street]]
[[Category:Geography of the City of Westminster]]


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