24/05/2026
Gnomes
Over the years I've seen just how important garden gnomes can be to their owners. And other characters too, sometimes inherited when taking on a new garden, or from a family member; and another, it's owner strangely drawn to him when she saw him at an auction. So I was really happy that this year, the Chelsea Flower Show has finally raised the ban on gnomes!
When we adopted our own garden twenty five years ago, we inherited a motley crew of gnomes. Our town garden is small, and every inch important, so I just wasn't sure whether I could spare any space for them. However, I couldn't quite turf them out, feeling that really, this was their garden as much as ours.
They're now cloaked in moss, but in days gone by, they were once brightly coloured. One sits astride a stool and another is hammering a horseshoe over an anvil. We also have a couple of frogs.
Turns out, these characters have a history. A previous owner of our house was a prison officer up at Princetown back in the sixties. Forty years on, we visited the prison museum and to our surprise, there they were, for sale, gnomes and frogs exactly the same as the ones in our garden. The very moulds that created our gnomes around forty years, still in use!
There is also in our garden, a terrier made of lead who likely predates our gnomes. He was probably painted when he started out life, but he sports the mature, silver look equally well!
Then there is the delightful community, established a few years ago next to the waterfall along the Tavistock viaduct walk. The photo was taken a couple of years ago, and the thriving population has since dwindled a bit!
