press and reader reviews
press and reader reviews
'This book is only tangentially about gardens. And yet gardens form the very core of the story, for it is above all through gardens that the love is expressed between the competent, clever, musical campaigner Nancy Tennant and the much younger object of her affections, Humphrey Waterfield.'
Ambra Edwards Gardens Illustrated
'At its heart, this is the story of how and why two people spent several decades transforming an unloved three-acre dumping ground into 'the lesser known but truly remarkable British landscaped garden.' One of the many refreshing characteristics of this beautifully written and constructed account of their relationship is the author's decision not to speculate...[it is] left for the reader to ponder...'
Giles Kime Country Life
what others readers have said...
'a brilliant story and beautifully written' Laura Silverman, Features Editor, Country Living
'I couldn't put it down, I was totally immersed...'
'...so many interesting things about this wonderful book...
the author is very good at evoking the years of enormou
'I so enjoyed this fascinating story, beautifully written, of art in so many forms and enduring love...'
'A wonderful new book to look out for - EDEN'S KEEPERS by Sarah Barclay. The book tells of the lives and loves of garden designer and painter Humphrey Waterfield and Nancy Tennant, who together created one of the most beautiful gardens in England during the Second World War. We loved it.'
Louisa Symington, Books at the Barn
'This book is only tangentially about gardens. And yet gardens form the very core of the story, for it is above all through gardens that the love is expressed between the competent, clever, musical campaigner Nancy Tennant and the much younger object of her affections, Humphrey Waterfield.'
Ambra Edwards Gardens Illustrated
'At its heart, this is the story of how and why two people spent several decades transforming an unloved three-acre dumping ground into 'the lesser known but truly remarkable British landscaped garden.' One of the many refreshing characteristics of this beautifully written and constructed account of their relationship is the author's decision not to speculate...[it is] left for the reader to ponder...'
Giles Kime Country Life
what others readers have said...
'a brilliant story and beautifully written' Laura Silverman, Features Editor, Country Living
'I couldn't put it down, I was totally immersed...'
'...so many interesting things about this wonderful book...
the author is very good at evoking the years of enormous uncertainty during WW2'
We may think we invented complex
'I so enjoyed this fascinating story, beautifully written, of art in so many forms and enduring love...'
'A wonderful new book to look out for - EDEN'S KEEPERS by Sarah Barclay. The book tells of the lives and loves of garden designer and painter Humphrey Waterfield and Nancy Tennant, who together created one of the most beautiful gardens in England during the Second World War. We loved it.'
Louisa Symington, Books at the Barn
PRESS, AUTHOR AND READER REVIEWS
This is just the kind of book I like; non fiction that rolls along like a novel. It’s written in a very engaging and accessible style and I highly recommend it.
goodreads.com
'This book is only tangentially about gardens. And yet gardens form the very core of the story, for it is above all through gardens that the love is expressed between the competent, clever, musical campaigner Nancy Tennant and the much younger object of her affections, Humphrey Waterfield.'
Ambra Edwards Gardens Illustrated
'At its heart, this is the story of how and why two people spent several decades transforming an unloved three-acre dumping ground into 'the lesser known but truly remarkable British landscaped garden.' One of the many refreshing characteristics of this beautifully written and constructed account of their relationship is the author's decision not to speculate...[it is] left for the reader to ponder...'
Giles Kime Country Life
'If garden history is more your cup of tea (preferably drunk in the shade of the spreading oak as the cuckoo calls overhead), then Eden's Keepers is a fascinating story of paradise lost, found - and gardens created'
@natashapoliszczuk
what others readers have said...
'a brilliant story and beautifully written'
Laura Silverman, Features Editor, Country Living
'I couldn't put it down, I was totally immersed...'
'...so many interesting things about this wonderful book...
the author is very good at evoking the years of enormous uncertainty during WW2'
'I so enjoyed this fascinating story, beautifully written, of art in so many forms and enduring love...'
'A wonderful new book to look out for - EDEN'S KEEPERS by Sarah Barclay. The book tells of the lives and loves of garden designer and painter Humphrey Waterfield and Nancy Tennant, who together created one of the most beautiful gardens in England during the Second World War. We loved it.'
Louisa Symington, Books at the Barn
We may think we invented complex modern relationships but Eden's Keepers, detailing the 40-year ‘miraculous friendship’ between an elegant older woman and a younger gay man, is original and inspiring. Set against the backdrop of the 20th century and two world wars, taking in everything from the Bloomsbury Set to the founding of the WI, this is biography at its most compelling. Not only did Nancy Tennant and Humphrey Waterfield create a series of beautiful gardens together (their own version of earthly paradise), they pioneered a new way of living. There are many ways to love - without jealousy and fear - and their refusal to be judged by society enriches all of us today. Surely a film or TV series must be in the works!
Liz Hoggard, author, arts journalist and judge for the 2022 Comedy Women In Print Book Prize.
‘Having visited Hill Pasture in the early Seventies, I was fascinated to read Sarah’s book about the creation of the garden, and the lives of Nancy Tennant and Humphrey Waterfield. She conjures up the period perfectly. She describes their friendship and creativity, and makes a touching and inspiring story.’
Judy Johnson
The history of gardening blooms with offbeat partnerships united by fraught, thwarted or unspoken love – Vita and Harold, Jekyll and Lutyens, Margery and Walter Fish. Now Sarah Barclay has unearthed another: Humphrey Waterfield and Nancy Tennant, whose three-acre Essex plot, Hill Pasture, begun between the wars, would grow into ‘the most beautiful small garden in England.’
Combing decades of unpublished diaries and correspondence, Barclay confidently lets her subjects reveal most of their agonising emotional impulses—from an unloving mother and a lost home to grief at killed family and friends, unrequited or impossible love, privileged purposelessness and unconsummated adulthood—providing just the right amount of explanatory context. Waterfield’s status as a Conscientious Objector tending to the wounded grants glimpses of the Second World from an angle rarely seen. En route, she assembles an extraordinary cast, ranging from Louis de Rothschild and Joachim von Ribbentrop—even an encounter with Hitler himself—to Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Erno Goldfinger and Lanning Roper.
As much a garden of the mind as a real place, Barclay shows how Waterfield’s and Tennant’s ‘silly old plot’ becomes a psychological refuge from the tectonic plates of history grinding at the gate; a sanctuary from wartime life, whether Scandinavian winters, desert sunburn or simply missing each other—as well as a repository for the creative joys and hopes and nurturing instincts they yearn as a childless, unmarried couple who never quite acknowledges that that’s what they are. The story reminded me of the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz’s patient who, talking about his house in France and how much he enjoyed thinking about it and making plans for it, then got up to leave at the end of his course of treatment and said: ‘You do know there is no house in France, don’t you?’ Except that Hill Pasture was a real place, with dewy lawns and views and a Long Walk called Chatsworth and a peony garden, camellia court and lead cistern beneath a weeping willow.
This story is a real find, brought beautifully to life.
Antony Woodward author of The Garden in the Clouds
I listened to a joint talk at the Garden Museum Literary Festival this summer. Sarah Barclay’s contribution was on the theme of Garden Refuges. I was curious enough to ask my local library to purchase a copy of the book. I am so glad I did because the book revealed far more than the talk which really concentrated on the gardens. I expect this would have been the plan though given where the talk was held aside from not giving away spoilers.