Quiet Gardens - The Roots of Faith

By Susan Bowden-Pickstock
In Memoriam: Chris Bard

QUIET Gardens was written in memory of Chris Bard, vicar of Theydon Garnon and Epping Upland, who died in September 2007, aged 55.

Away from his parish work, Chris was chaplain to Capel Manor College, London's horticultural college, and presenter of the Sunday faith programme on BBC Essex.
Susan Bowden-Pickstock was a BBC colleague.

For two years Susan and Chris travelled the length and breadth of Britain, meeting around 25 'quiet gardeners' and visiting their gardens for a radio documentary. It was when they flew out to Dublin to visit gardens in Northern and Southern Ireland that Chris died suddenly and unexpectedly in Dublin airport. Fortunately Susan
has shared their work through writing this book.

Quiet Gardens explores the garden as a medium for meaning and spirituality. The Bible begins with the story of creation and of God walking with the man and the woman in the garden in the cool of the day. For many, enjoying and/or making a garden is both a connection with the wider environment and a link to that which is beyond ourselves.

The book includes a conversation with Beth Chatto, creator of the famous relational garden at Elmstead, near Colchester, at the heart of which are triangles representing earth, heaven and humankind. In another chapter, a walk through the quiet garden at Witham is descibed as a kind of metaphor for a journey through life with its ups and downs and stops for reflection and contemplation, with Christ waiting at the end.

Quiet Gardens reveals how gardens are used as meeting places for those of all faiths and none in their life journey. In a world which is divided by international tensions and dominated by material acquisitions, the desire to pursue the spiritual manifests itself in new ways. So the garden has become a place for inter-faith and ecological conversation. The relationship between meaning, spirituality and horticulture transcends cultural and religious differences and offers hope for the future.

? ‘Quiet Gardens - The Roots of Faith?' by Susan Bowden-Pickstock is published by Continuum at £16.99, but is available less 10 per cent discount plus p&p from Chelmsford Resource Centre, tel 01245 294405, email resources@chelmsford.anglican.org

Page last edited: 20/07/2009
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