Behind (almost) every great writer is a great garden

It is a truism that writers of all kinds often find inspiration and solace in their gardens, as well as protection from the outside world and its demands. After all, writing is a supremely solitary business and outside influences must be subtle and uplifting, not noisy and distracting, if writers are to flourish. The Writer’s Garden is an attempt to explore this appealing idea by describing the gardens of 20 well-loved British writers, including Jane Austen, Beatrix Potter, Walter Scott and George Bernard Shaw.

The choices are largely expected — Jane Austen’s Chawton and Godmersham, Agatha Christie’s Greenway, Winston Churchill’s Chartwell, Rudyard Kipling’s Bateman’s and Walter Scott’s Abbotsford — but there are less obvious ones as well, such as John Clare’s cottage in Helpston (he is the only working gardener in this mix), Laurence Sterne’s Shandy Hall, and Charles Dickens’s Gad’s Hill Place. In truth, the inclusion of Ted Hughes’s Lumb Bank is pushing it, since he only lived there for a year, and Robert Burns’s Ellisland was frankly more farm than garden.