A life in colour
Light streams through the windows of Benton End, illuminating the upstairs studios where Cedric Morris once painted the young Lucian Freud. It fills the communal dining room, where artists once argued over the sex life of camels and washed up in a sink made of Portuguese tiles.
Outside, the ghosts of past garden plants emerge from the wild meadows. Lucy Skellorn, Benton End research assistant, carefully points out the speckled fritillaria, deep-red wild tulips, Sicilian honey garlic and scarlet anemone. Striking crown imperials glow yellow and orange in neglected corners. A vigorous ‘Sir Cedric Morris’ dominates the upper garden; by June it will be a flamboyant display of white blossoms. These are just a few of the plants dubbed ‘Cedric’s ghosts’: some of the last surviving specimens from what was once one of
