Trip to Somerset

One afternoon this week David and I decided to take a drive out to Bruton, Somerset, about an hour's drive from home.  We'd found in the RHS magazine from last month there was a garden to visit, but it turns out it's an art gallery with a garden attached, which is on a farm.

The gallery owners, Hauser and Wirth, also have galleries in the US, Hong Kong, Switzerland as well as London.  We weren't sure whether to take photos or not so didn't take any in the gallery but waited until we were in the gardens.  The exhibition of work by artist Alexander Calder, an American artist who lived  between 1898 and 1976 and was best known for his kinetic art work and it was fascinating to see how the mobiles that were hung balanced perfectly.  There is more information here on the Tate website and I found more information here which has an interview with his grandson.

There were a couple of his sculptures in the garden

I took the bottom one at a quirky angle as you can see.

The gardens were really colourful in spite of the recent hot dry weather, but there were quite a lot of prairie grass plants so they probably survived the best.

The space age looking white building at the end of the gardens is for events and is reached by a ramp and curls around so there is a space in the middle. The black part of the building is gives a view taking in a section of the garden and the fields beyond.

The gardens were full of colour and interest that also had a pond with some water-loving plants and waterlilies

A longish way to go to view art and gardens and made a change to go somewhere different.