I came across this plaque in Kensington Gardens on Sunday. It is the right time of year to see it because William Forsyth’s Forsythia was flowering.
Born in 1737 in Aberdeenshire he learnt his gardening at the Chelsea Physic Garden, rising to become head gardener in 1771. He was appointed Superintendent of the royal gardens at Kensington and St James’s Palace in 1784, a position he held until his death in 1804.
If you had a central London childhood, no doubt Nanny took you to Kensington Palace Gardens, where she could gossip with other Nannies, and you will be familiar with two pieces of kitsch. Even if you didn’t grow up in London you will probably be aware of this bronze of Peter Pan.
JM Barrie commissioned Sir George Frampton to make it and erected it (without permission) on the spot Peter Pan was supposed to have landed in one of his books. Frampton was a perfectly competent and successful sculptor and it could be a great deal worse. I imagine Sir George would be pleased to know that there is a memorial to him in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral but he might be disappointed that he is remembered by this rather revolting, chubby naked child holding a miniature of his Peter Pan bronze.
The other bit of kitsch in the park is something I had not come across before; the elfin oak. This is the trunk of a noble, apparently 900-year old, oak that was lying, as great oaks do, where it fell in Richmond Park until it was shifted to Kensington Palace Gardens in 1928 by a busy-body called Lady Fortescue. She then had “Little People” carved on the trunk and it sits forlornly in a security cage outside a playground in the gardens.
The children thronging the playground and the ice cream kiosk on a Sunday afternoon gave it a wide berth. It has spawned a book from which this is an extract:
… for centuries now it has been the home of fairies, gnomes, elves, imps, and pixies. In the nooks and crannies they lurk, or peer out of holes and crevices, their natural windows and doorways. It is their hiding-place by day, their revelry place by night, and when the great moon tops the bare branchless tree the Elfin Clans come out to play and frolic in the moonlight.
Sounds right up Madeline Bassetts’ whimsical street. “One morning we had walked in the meadows and the grass was all covered with little wreaths of mist, and I said, Didn’t he sometimes feel that they were the elves’ bridal veils.” (Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves, chapter 12.)