Great Comp Garden
This beautiful garden is just 10 minutes away from where we live. I’ve been meaning to visit ever since I started drawing from life in gardens last year, and last week (just weeks before we move out of Kent!) I finally got around to it.
Great Comp Garden (near Sevenoaks in Kent) is a 7 acre garden surrounding a 17th century manor house. It’s got a pretty interesting history too - I bought a beautiful book from the cafe with loads of photographs from the garden’s past and the story of it’s creation.
It was gorgeous day with plenty of bright sunshine, so I was relieved to find lots of benches in the shade (which makes a change from the other gardens I’ve visited lately!)
I started with a wander around the whole garden. It’s not huge but there’s plenty to see and explore - including an Italian garden, woodland walk and formal green. The whole place has a Secret Garden feel, with lots of archways surrounded by greenery, stone ruins, a temple and even a little “tower”. Wandering round in the sunshine in my favourite dress and soaking up all the inspiration made for a pretty perfect summer Friday.
Once I’d found my way around the place, I went back to my favourite spots for some drawing. I made the most of those benches in the shade and filled up 8 spreads in my sketchbook (it would have been more but that was the end of the sketchbook!)
This was the perfect setting for the type of drawing that I’ve been enjoying recently. The contrast of solid, man-made structures against the softer, natural forms of plants was exactly what I was looking for. I wasn’t thrilled with some of the drawings I made while I was there (I always struggle a bit more in the heat), but I had so much fun and still gained a lot from each of the pages I filled.
The house itself, stone arches, ornate urns and iron gates all made for some great drawing reference, paired with some beautiful Poppies, Clematis, Dahlias and Astrantia. As well as the pages in my sketchbooks I of course took plenty of photos to refer back to later on. I got some great snaps of people wandering around the plant nursery at the end too - I won’t be sharing those photos as they contain other people but they’re going to be very useful for drawing practice as the human figure is something I definitely need to practice more of!
I’m so glad I finally got around to visiting! I might try to squeeze in another visit here before we move next month, but if not I’ll definitely be making an effort to visit again next Spring as I’m sure it’ll be even more beautiful when it’s fully in bloom.
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