Sculpture by the Lakes: 'Gloriously wild' .

Sculpture by the Lakes: 'Gloriously wild' - Telegraph
Admirers of great British sculpture gardens - whether classical parks such as Chatsworth House or inventive institutions such as the Jupiter Artland estate near Edinburgh - should brace themselves before visiting the country's latest "sculpture park". Sculpture by the Lakes is nothing like the grand estates set up by wealthy families to show off their vast estates or (often pretty eclectic) collections of art. And a grand National Trust property it most certainly is not.
Located on the outskirts of Pallington village in Dorset (whose main claim to fame is that T.E. Lawrence is buried nearby), the entrance is set in a lane of ordinary English cottages. An odorous farm lies next door, and giant electricity pylons loom ominously over its grounds.

But the appeal of this place, I soon discover, on parking alongside modern barns at the end of a gravel drive, is that it is the antithesis of anywhere else in Britain - and deliberately so. It is gloriously wild, and refreshingly different.
Unlike most sculpture parks, this one is devoted to the art of just one man: the owner, Simon Gudgeon. When the Yorkshire-born sculptor and his wife, Monique, bought the 26-acre property in 2007, it was a fishery surrounded by almost-derelict land.

Slowly, they weeded, landscaped and tamed it, and in 2011, opened it to the public. Simon has become one of the country's leading bronze sculptors; he makes about 20 big pieces a year, ranging in price from £2,500 up to £300,000 each, and collectors range from American museums to three generations of British royalty (the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge who were given one by Sandringham staff as a wedding present). This park is his gallery.
Unlike most other sculpture parks, here the landscape, too, has been created by the couple. Monique - a former London PR-turned-landscape-gardener - drew up the plans and they both spent the next four years hauling earth, digging streams and cultivating about 8,000 plants. Refreshingly, when they eventually opened, rather than allowing hundreds of visitors, they decided to restrict numbers to just 30 (pre-booked, over-18s) a day. Each is invited to spend as long as he or she wants there, picnicking by the lakes, contemplating life from one of the benches or pergolas or retro Riverman's Hut caravan, or strolling along the winding paths between trees, past islands and butterfly beds and among fields of wildflowers.
"If people leave after an hour, we get worried as we think they don't like it," says Simon. "What we want is for people to fall in love with the garden, and the art, and really get a feel for the way the one enhances the other. To me, they have to be integrated. I can't stand sculpture gardens where they just plonk a statue somewhere, and it relates to nothing around it. What we are trying to do is to create an emotional place where people can find solitude and peace, and come to love art in a way they haven't before. What's fantastic for us is when people go 'Wow! I never thought I loved sculpture before, but now I get it.'"
While the garden is a charming attraction in itself, with an eccentric mix of birch woodland (planted by the couple to celebrate their 50th birthdays), Japanese-style formal gardens, a herbaceous tunnel swathed in roses and wisteria, a dog cemetery guarded by stone hares, and architectural beds of gravel and grasses, it is the sculptures that most visitors come to see.

Many are enormous. Ibis, for instance - a duplicate of the abstract bird erected beside the Serpentine in Hyde Park in 2010 - soars three metres into the sky, and some of the Fruit pieces (apples, cherries, plums and pears) are about the size of a man. "Every artist wants to make a statement," says Simon mischievously, "and the bigger it is, the bigger the statement is you're making."
Other pieces are smaller and more contemplative. A paved path, for instance, is inlaid with plaques engraved with quotations on beauty.
An oak plinth in woodlands sports a hole through which a bronze owl peers. A pair of silver swans entwine their necks on a lake nearby stone letters making up the words "Time to Reflect" looming above the water. And at the edge of a field, by the tumbling waters of the River Frome, two enormous bronze human heads gaze up to the skies: Search For Enlightenment.
The giant pair of sculptures was inspired, Simon says, by "standing on the edge of a 240-million-year-old mountain in Africa and watched the 4.6-billion-year-old sun descend and some of the 200 billion stars come out. It was at that moment I began to grasp the transience of humanity. And I knew I had to get on and create what I could while I could - and hopefully make things that inspired other people, too."
Unlike many sculpture parks, the landscape here has been determined by the art - not the other way round. "Generally, I will walk round the park and take the influences from a specific natural spot to make a piece," Simon says. Once it is finished, Monique will devise a planting plan that works around it.
"The ideal is to enhance but not distract from the work," Monique says. "Given most of Simon's works are curved and organic, for instance, we've created paths that follow that form." The key, she says, is to ensure plants aren't too big or too close to the works, and that there aren't too many varieties.
"The ideal is to keep the surrounding area simple, evergreen and in proportion."
In other parts of the garden, Monique is the artist, creating sculptural forms of her own using plants. Having long been an admirer of karikomi, the Japanese art of "cloud-pruning", she created, with the help of bonsai expert Jake Hobson, her own beds of neatly-trimmed "clouds" of green using box-leaf honeysuckle, Lonicera nitida, and Phillyrea latifolia. Alongside them, in front of the house, she made an Eastern-inspired gravel garden patterned with hardy grasses, sedums and water-resistant species. And from there, leading into the woodlands, she built a archway of classic climbers such as wisteria, clematis and honeysuckle: "To create a tunnel that delights all senses, particularly in summer, when it's filled with scent."
Something both of them clearly delight in is the element of surprise.
While a few sculptures have been carefully placed to give pleasure from a distance, others - life-sized roe deer, and oversized otters and doves - are discreetly placed in woodland nooks and around bends to be discovered. "It's lovely to have both sculptures that lure you to a place, and elsewhere pieces that you chance upon," says Monique.
"Some pieces need distance, others benefit from intimacy."
What they wanted create, Simon says, is "A place where people could come and contemplate nature, and relish the beauty of it. To me, art should be beautiful. I don't see the point of ugly pieces of art or controversial pieces. If something is beautiful, people will engage. If it's ugly they'll walk past. And if it's a pile of rubbish, they'll laugh.
To me, beauty is paramount. What we're trying to do is enhance the beauty of nature with beautiful art."