Whispers of the Wilderness: Exploring Wilderness Gardens

Step into a world where art and nature intertwine in a celebration of Beningbrough’s Wilderness Garden, past and present.

In the year that garden designer, Andy Sturgeon breathes new life into the landscape with enhanced planting and reimagined vistas, artist Laura Ellen Bacon brings the essence of the garden indoors with her striking, large-scale willow sculptures. Inspired by nature and rooted in place, Bacon’s flowing, organic forms transform Beningbrough Hall, capturing the movement and energy of the wild.

In the Great Hall, woven willow sculptures will rise from black plinths—echoing lost statues and swaying as if shaped by time and memory and, in the Saloon Gallery, an oversized looping sculpture invites you to step inside, becoming part of the piece—an immersive reflection on nature’s resilience and our connection to the land.

Alongside these contemporary works, nine historic pieces from the National Trust collection—paintings, books, and sculptures—trace the eighteenth-century passion for wilderness gardens and their role as sensory retreats. The exhibition follows suit, filling the Hall with the scent of fragrant willow and readings of specially commissioned poetry.

For those inspired to create, a new drawing studio invites you to put pen to paper, echoing Laura Ellen Bacon’s artistic process of responding to nature through sketching.