Our Gallery in the Garden

On Thursday 14 May we unpacked our R.H.S Chelsea Flower Show stand and set it up here in  the garden. Covered by our oak frames and decorated with fresh flowers we had created our little corner of Chelsea once again. This year as unusual not on the banks of the Thames but here at home at Molecey nestled on the side of the River Welland.

We filmed the display and our highlights, once again, for all of our friends and supporters to enjoy. 

Graham took on the roll of host and brought alive our floral still life compositions by Pieter Wagemans their blooms and blossoms bright and fragrant. From Stewart Lees’s freshly chopped herbs and wonderful shelves of old clay pots meant we had an amazingly fragrant  herb display. 

Peter van Breda came up as a surprise on the last Saturday of “Chelsea at home” to paint for us and took the chance as lockdown eased to paint once more outside  in Stamford. Paul S. Brown had some wonderful vintage wines for us and the whole exhibition did feel quite like our usual flower show.

You can view our video from Chelsea 2020 here.

The only thing missing this year were the crowds but slowly they started to come! The Times newspaper ran a piece on what we had put together on 13 June. National newspaper coverage was tremendously exciting and the article really put West Deeping on the map. 

Our gallery in the garden was up there with Stowe, Cliveden some of the top gardens to visit in the country.Through ticketed admission from the Molecey website we had over 400 people visit the show from as far afield as Nottingham and Derby to the West and Norwich to the East.

 We shared our paintings and sculpture with them all and most took the chance to explore our gardens, rivers and streams and see for themselves what makes a Lincolnshire water mill so special. The waterwheel was pressed into action on a daily basis and history came alive. 

R. H. S Chelsea finally drew to a close yesterday, 28 September, as we dismantled and packed away the final pieces of the stand and returned the last few paintings to our London and Rutland galleries.

Paintings 'en plein air' in our impromptu gallery in the garden lasted for 135 days making Chelsea 2020 our longest running flower show ever!