Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint

This summer, the Garden Museum explores the impact of Benton End, the glorious historic home of Sir Cedric Morris(1889 – 1982), which the Garden Museum is currently helping to restore and revive to become a new centre for horticulture and art.

Enter the museum gallery to find yourself in the heart of the home at Benton End, the house, garden and art school led by artist plantsman Cedric Morris and his life partner, artist Arthur Lett-Haines.

Here you’ll meet a cast of friends gathered round the dining table: Benton End art students Lucian Freud and Joan Warburton, Cedric’s horticultural protégée gardener Beth Chatto, and Lett’s culinary inspiration, the cookery writer Elizabeth David.

The exhibition explores Benton End’s impact on a generation of artists and gardeners, with paintings, drawings, photographs, correspondence, personal belongings and objects from the school in its heyday telling the story of a place where learning, creative freedom and horticultural experimentation came together.