A Review By Keith Smith

‘The Morville Hours’ won widespread praise from critics and readers alike, and was of course our ‘Book Of The Year’. Katherine Swift’s prose has a crisp beauty as she described the birth and development of her garden at the Dower House at Morville in Shropshire. Now Katherine, one of the most-admired gardening writers of her generation, returns to describe a year in the life of the garden in ‘The Morville Year’. From the new beginnings and green shoots of March as the weather teeters back and forth between Winter and Spring as if trying to make up its mind, through the intoxicating simple pleasures of the first smell of freshly-mown grass and May flower festivals, all the way through the year in her wonderful garden, Katherine takes the reader on a journey that will appeal to gardeners and non-gardeners alike.

Every bit as beautifully produced as ‘The Morville Hours’, the book will include chapter-opening illustrations by Dawn Burford and four inserts of colour photography (one for each season) by Jane Sebire to show the garden in all its splendour. Those who loved ‘The Morville Hours’ will again fall under Katherine’s spell while those who haven’t yet been taken to Morville will delight in discovering it for the first time.

We have been to Morville several times and just love it. Katherine has come to Warwick to give a delightful illustrated talk and this year is doing a similar event for us at the Kenilworth Festival about this new book. You shouldn’t miss it! And, as for the book it is a simply wonderful read…a magical mixture of gardening, history, philosophy and much else besides.