Hidden Winchester: ALAN SMITH & TIM COX
In his own words, he had decided to embody his work into the living rhythm of nature, where one knows that the seeds planted today, planned meticulously, will grow after four to five years into astonishing members of a forest of colours, but not without constant observation and the odd carefully managed curatorial intervention. The importance of the physical environment, often unnoticed and undervalued, has always been fostered at Win Coll. In reality, it is the subconscious vestibule of memory to the conscious day-to-day lives of the community which lives, studies and works there. And it is given the wise investment and worthwhile praise that it deserves, not least by those who tend it, rightly seeing themselves as custodians of 600 years of history. That investment of time and patience was needed in the redesign of War Cloister, where the balance between modern design and historic value had to be managed incredibly sensitively, reflecting a very common issue for the school. The research that went into each and every square patch of soil, however, did the endeavour justice. The choice of yew, with its poetic associations with the past and the future,
can be fully understood, not least in the famous words of Walter de la Mare –“ The Yew alone burns lamps of peace,/ For them that lie forlorn”, as brilliantly celebrated in a 2014 edition of The Wykehamist. A vast amount of respect was given to the original mood and surroundings of the Cloister, which was originally designed by none other than the great architect Sir Herbert Baker, with a planting plan drawn up by Gertrude Jekyll. It is often in the quiet histories of our surroundings that we come to realise how fortunate we are. Or as Shakespeare’ s Miranda would have it,“ How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it!” Alan and Tim tend not to go for the flashiness of modern gardening techniques. Avoiding the gaudiness and constant competition for attention that has even filtered through into horticulture, they choose, instead, to employ a philosophy of osmosis into their management of the school’ s gardens. According to them, meditation and mindfulness play a huge part in ensuring that the backdrop to the boys’ learning is one of a calming environment, rather than one encouraging modern pressures through the use
22 The Wykeham Journal 2016