Garden Antiques

Artist Chloë Holt's lifelong love of visiting historic gardens has inspired a passion for collecting sculptures, urns, and architectural fragments

- EMMA LONGSTAFF

From a very young age, I was drawn to the magic and tranquillity of gardens. Growing up in Chester, I was fortunate to visit the beautiful local National Trust gardens at Bodnant and Erddig in Wales, which left a lasting impression on me. These gardens, with their intricate designs and peaceful atmospheres, felt like works of art brought to life.

As a child, I also visited French châteaux, and the experience of wandering through their magnificent gardens shaped my understanding of beauty and history. One particularly vivid memory is of visiting Fontainebleau and being captivated by the grandeur and ambience of its gardens - the elegant sculptures, the opulent stone fountains, the milky turquoise pools with large, black carp gliding beneath the opaque surface. I can still sense it all now, the twinkling water under a baking hot sun, the birdsong, the peace.

I started by collecting natural history: a perfect egg, windfall fruits, flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beach, lichen-covered fallen branches from a walk. As I grew older, my collecting instinct expanded. Antiques fairs, salvage yards, and auctions became places of discovery, where I could hunt for objects that resonated with me. Over time, I noticed a pattern. I was consistently drawn to pieces I connected to gardens I had experienced. Sculptures, urns, architectural fragments - these objects seemed to carry the same sense of history, artistry, and tranquillity that I had always associated with gardens.