GARDEN OF REST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 199, 26 August 1935, Page 8

GARDEN OF REST

FAMOUS STOKE POGES OLD CHURCHYARD PRESERVED INSPIRATION OF GRAY’S ELEGY Stokes Poges Gardens, 20 acres of meadows adjoining Stoke Poges Church, in whose churchyard Gray conceived the Elegy, were last month dedicated by the Bishop of Buckingham, the Right Rev. Philip Herbert Eliot, as a Garden of Rest, thereby ensuring their preservation for ever from a threatened deluge of bricks, from which they w ere saved at the last moment. The surroundings of the church —a place of pilgrimage second only to Stratford—are now safe. Protected on one side by fields held by the National Trust and on the other by Stoke Poges Gardens, the serenity of a scene known the world over can never be disturbed. The gardens are the first of their kind ■n England. For many years there have been protests against the unsightliness of the modern cemetery, in which alleys of staring marble and white Italian masonry destroy all semblance of repose. Dr. W. Foxley Norris, chairman of ‘he Central Council for the Care of Churches, and other leaders of the Church, have joined in condemning these garish successors to the tranquil •hurchyards of yesterday, and some clergy are refusing to permit marble headstones in the ground of which they have charge. In the gardens now linked to Gray’s Churchyard the question is being asked: Has the tombstone, the inscribed stone memorial, anything to commend it beyond habit? There will be no burials in the ground which was dedicated, it will be a resting place only for the ashes of the dead; and the earthly record of those who rest there will be preserved, not by “monumental masonry,” but in a volume known as the Book of the Past. None except Nature’s memorials will be allowed—trees, shrubs, flowers, leafy corners, a rivulet or brimming pool, or a small garden, as the person commem orated might have wished. A sun-dial, a stone seat, or here and there some ornament that agrees with its setting will be the only other means of commemoration. Since the beginning of the year the gardens, under the guidance of Mr. Ed ward White, the distinguished landscape architect, have rapidly taken character. Daffodils, primroses and tulips have arisen in drifts under the elms and oaks, and 10,000 new trees — some of the most lovely flowering species and some forest forms—have been planted, besides thousands of flowers and flowering shrubs. Near Stoke Poges Church, the scene has been left unchanged, but as one penetrates farther into the gardens every resource of good design is brought into play. The levels have been varied; water is happily intro • luced; there are the origins of a magnificent rose garden; and the site is be ing cleared for a noble cloister, moated round and with a sunny fountain in the middle. Many of the small memorial gardens have been tentatively shaped—herb ami flower gardens, sunk and paved gardens, and gardens hedged with yew and box; and they have been devised with such skill that, through falling naturally into the wider scheme, ecah one is a sanctu ary apart, a place of unassailable privacy. In years to come, Stoke Poges as a spectacle of the four seasons will rival Kcw, and stand as one of the supreme illustrations of landscape planning. But what gives the project its striking in tcrest is the nev’ principle of enshrining the dead; a node of commemoration which some believe one day make the jeemetery appear a strange relic of antiquit*.