Blooming Marvellous
Flowers gardens and hidden meanings in art
Spend a day with me exploring London through flowers. Blooming Marvellous brings together art, gardens, hidden stories and good food in a carefully curated day designed to make you look a little more closely.
We begin at the National Gallery, exploring how artists have used flowers to tell stories of love, faith, beauty, status and faraway places. After lunch, we leave the painted flowers behind and continue into the City of London, where gardens, ruins and green spaces reveal another side of the capital.
Morning — Secrets in the National Gallery
Why are tiny flowers scattered across a heavenly garden? How can one carefully chosen plant alter the meaning of a painting? And what can a single rose, an exotic bloom or a fading flower reveal that we might otherwise miss?
Look a little closer at the National Gallery and flowers begin to reveal all sorts of secrets. They can speak of love and desire, faith and devotion, wealth and status, distant lands, the senses — even life and death.
Together we’ll uncover the botanical clues hiding in plain sight and discover the stories behind them. Some are centuries-old symbols that earlier audiences would have recognised immediately; others reveal changing fashions, global trade, scientific curiosity or something much more personal.
You may never look at flowers in paintings quite the same way again.
Lunch — A relaxed pause
After our morning in the National Gallery, well stop for a relaxed lunch at a Garden at a carefully chosen nearby restaurant.
It’s a chance to sit down, enjoy good food and conversation, and take a proper break before we head into the City for the afternoon.
Blooming Marvellous is a full-day London Experience Day for small groups, combining a guided visit to the National Gallery, a relaxed lunch nearby and an afternoon exploring selected gardens and stories from the Square Mile in Bloom.
Afternoon — The Square Mile in Bloom
Gardens, ruins and remarkable lives in the City of London
After lunch, we leave the painted flowers behind and head into the Square Mile, exploring a selection of the gardens and stories from my City of London walking tour, The Square Mile in Bloom.
These are much more than pretty green spaces. We’ll discover gardens created from bomb sites and church ruins, places shaped by centuries of burial and rebuilding, medicinal planting, remarkable memorials and ingenious modern gardens tucked between the City’s buildings.
The exact route can change with the seasons, access and what London has growing for us on the day.
Who is Blooming Marvellous for?
Blooming Marvellous is for anyone who loves art, flowers, gardens and discovering London in a more thoughtful way.
You don’t need any specialist knowledge — just curiosity and an interest in seeing familiar things from a new perspective. Come on your own, with a friend, or enquire about a private group.
What’s Included
Guided National Gallery visit with a London Blue Badge Guide
Lunch
Guided afternoon exploring selected gardens and stories from the Square Mile in Bloom
A carefully curated full day in a small group
Practical Details
Blooming Marvellous is a full-day London Experience Day for small groups, combining a guided visit to the National Gallery, a relaxed lunch and an afternoon exploring selected gardens and stories from The Square Mile in Bloom.
Dates, prices and booking details are available on enquiry. Private group dates can also be arranged. The National Gallery flower tour and The Square Mile in Bloom can also be booked separately as private tours.
The exact lunch venue and afternoon route may vary according to the date, season and access.
Vincent van Goch, Sunflowers, 1888, The National Gallery, London. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.