England

Derek Jarman's Garden

An avant-garde artist is survived by his seaside garden.

Avant-garde artist Derek Jarman once said, “‘Paradise haunts gardens, and some gardens are paradises. Mine is one of them. Others are like bad children, spoilt by their parents, over-watered and covered with noxious chemicals.”

It is with this ethos that he built the sparse desert garden surrounding Prospect Cottage, his final home. The landscape consists of a number of varieties of hardy local plants accented by driftwood and found objects from the nearby beach. The garden surrounding the small slat-board cottage also features a number of standing stone sculptures that the artist installed. Jarman passed away in 1994, but the garden is maintained by his former partner. The garden is on private property and not open to the public, but fans of Jarman’s work or just beautiful landscaping are welcome to view the garden from the road.

Know Before You Go

The cottage is on the single track Lydd road from Dungeness and visible from the miniature railway. It’s a ten-minute walk along the shingle beach to the railway station.

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