‘I love a garden that’s wild, but with a little control…’
So says brilliant photo-journalist, Leigh Clapp, who for 20 years has been gracing the pages of Kent Life with her garden features. As she finally hangs up her camera, she talks to Anna Lambert, who discovers that Leigh has much in common with the gardens she so admires…
I knew Leigh Clapp would be a reluctant interviewee – she admits she doesn’t like being pinned down or told what to do, and as her work reflects, she’s far more interested in others than she is in herself. For Leigh, it’s all about plants and people – how they interact, how one sustains the other, capturing the individual beauty of nature and their collective impact in creating the most beautiful, interesting and inspirational of outdoor spaces. When she finally agrees to talk about her long and illustrious career, though, she begins with typical pithiness: ‘Basically, I’ve spent my life doing what I love.’
In Leigh’s own garden she’s delighted in creating a beach area. (Image: Leigh Clapp)
Leigh grew up in a house on the rocks near Sydney Harbour, Australia. ‘We had a large, terraced garden, full of soft flannel flowers and native plants, with roses and gardenias in summer – I got to pick them for the table whenever my glamorous mother was entertaining,’ she recalls. Her ‘very English’ grandmother was another key influence. ‘Not only did she have a wonderful set of china, covered in rambling hollyhocks that I loved and was allowed to eat off, she indulged my passion for plants in her own lovely garden, answering every question. I remember the blue of Michaelmas daisies at Easter, the scent of lemon trees…’
Leigh says she was an explorer from the get-go: ‘I was just constantly off out and about, scrambling over rocks. We had no fences, and the bushland and harbour were my extended playground for myself and my friends, so I tended to be oblivious to the fact I was getting the gorgeous clothes my mother made me mucky, or that I had leaves in my hair. As a family, we’d record everything on camera, and recently – at my father’s 100th birthday party – my sister and parents pointed out that, from the age of about seven, I was nowhere to be seen in the photos. We concluded that that was because I was nowhere to be found or because I was shooting the pictures with my brownie camera.’
Geums at 1 Brickwall Cotttages (Image: Leigh Clapp)
At school, she was, ‘… always asking ‘why?’ and wanting to know where things came from. The school’s take was, “if you can back up your ideas, we’ll discuss them”’ Clearly this was a productive approach: Leigh won a school prize for her research skills at the age of eight.
Leigh was 19 when she met Graham Clapp through the local Young Liberals group. It turned out their paths had already crossed. ‘We’d been holidaying in the same areas and he’d been at school with my brother, yet we’d not come across each other before.’
Graham, an artist and brilliant sportsman who’d go on to become a teacher, shared Leigh’s innate sense of curiosity and her energy. All that was curtailed early in their subsequent marriage, though, when illness struck. ‘I thought it was just mosquito bite on my neck, but it turned out I had thyroid cancer.’ Leigh was just 22.
Leigh loves the contemporary style courtyard at Pheasant Barn. (Image: Leigh Clapp)
Her ‘brilliant’ endocrinology consultant saw her through treatment and was concerned at her level of all-consuming involvement with what her then-job as a teacher of gifted children. When she told him that she seemed to see images in her head within ‘frames’, he urged her to take up her photography hobby professionally – as a career that might be less demanding and that would offer her greater freedom. With the boldness of youth, Leigh walked into the Sydney offices of House & Garden magazine and told them she’d like to work for them. Remarkably, they suggested she tried her hand with a shoot on outdoor entertaining. ‘I set up friends with children in their garden, styled the whole thing, and took photos with some hastily acquired equipment,’ she remembers. ‘The team at H&G looked at the resulting images and said, “those are rather lovely…”’
Leigh’s career, then, was up and running, with shoots for Australia’s finest glossies including Vogue Living and Gourmet Traveller a natural progression. ‘The writing followed when it made sense to offer the complete package,’ says Leigh. ‘After all, I was there and could talk to garden owners at the same time, so it seemed like a natural step.’
The World Garden at Lullingstone, created by the ebulliant Tom Hart Dyke. (Image: Leigh Clapp)
Thinking it might never happen because of the gruelling treatment she’d undergone, Leigh and Graham were thrilled to welcome daughter Emma, who was to travel all over the world as the trio headed off in pursuit of stories and images. ‘She was a real asset when I’d take her with me for work, ‘says Leigh. ‘She was naturally rather angelic in nature, self-composed, of another time, and yet really in tune with travelling, soaking up the arts and culture. Her porcelain skin, big brown eyes and quiet nature seemed to draw people in.’
It was Emma’s burgeoning talent as a performer and dancer that led the family to settle in the UK during her teens. ‘We’d earlier spent 18 months in Hove as part of our extended travels, so we knew we liked it here. Graham had right of abode in the UK, so we just upped-sticks and came here permanently, with no jobs, no house, no real security.’
Emma gained a place at Laine Theatre Arts School in Surrey, though, and Graham found work as an art and IT teacher, and all three later became British citizens.
Leigh remembers flannel flowers in the gardens of her Australian childhood. (Image: Getty)
With the family settled, Leigh contacted UK magazines including the county ‘Life’ magazine titles in the southeast, which is how she started writing for Kent Life.
In 2019, Graham died from a brain haemorrhage. ‘He’d been my anchor for so many years, but I had to keep going,’ says Leigh of this darkest of times. Covid and then medical problems with breaks first to her heel, then to her wrist, were yet further challenges, but Leigh has remained indominatable. ‘Just before Graham died, we’d started looking in Shropshire for somewhere to retire to – the rolling hills remind me of the Australian Highlands, and they reminded Graham of his Welsh heritage. Once my health had recovered after injury, I was determined to make the move, albeit on my own. Now I’m here, it’s as if our plans have come full circle.’
Leigh loves the contemporary style courtyard at Pheasant Barn. (Image: Leigh Clapp)
With her 70th birthday last November, Leigh had special cause for celebration, and not just because she can look back on a career that includes countless features for the world’s finest magazines (including Kent Life!) but the numerous books her work has illustrated and a vast archive of photographs. ‘I’m still on medication for my initial thyroid cancer,’ she explains, ‘And I think I may be one of the longest survivors with my particular condition, so in many ways it’s amazing still to be here.’
She’s now looking forward, she says, to spending more time with her Emma (now 41 and living in Bromley with her husband, Tom) and, at last, to concentrating on her own garden. ‘I’m looking forward to being able to invite friends over for a lazy brunch on the gravel ‘beach’ area I’ve created, and to the stage when I can just relax with a book in it and just enjoy being still.’
Thank you, Leigh – and here’s hoping your own garden will bring you as much joy as your depictions of the gardens of others have brought Kent Life readers over the years.
Leigh much appreciates the magical quality of Charlotte Molesworth’s Balmoral Cottage. (Image: Leigh Clapp)
Reflections on a life behind the lens…
‘I have long fingers, and I’ve always been most interested in how a camera feels in my hands rather than its specific spec. If it’s got the right ‘feel’, I know it’ll work for me.’
‘Generally, I arrive at dawn for garden photo shoots, when things are undisturbed and the light is magical.’
‘If the garden owner has a dog, I’ll always try to get to know him or her by name before I start work – if you’re trying to shoot, you want to make sure any animals around feel you’re friendly so they’re not constantly barking at you.’
Marian Boswall creates beautiful gardens in a romantic and sustainable style. (Image: Leigh Clapp)
And favourite Kent Gardens…
Where to start? I love wildness with a little control – Marian Boswall’s private gardens are a joy and her ‘kind gardening’ ethos – good for the planet, good for everyone – is inspirational. Tom Hart Dyke’s World Garden at Lullingstone, born out of his kidnapping in the Columbian jungle, is extraordinary. His Tigger-like enthusiasm for all things plant-related is infectious and he proves that a garden can be a salvation. So many domestic gardens in the NGS scheme are lovely, too: I especially like the contemporary courtyard at Pheasant Barn near Oare and the variety of all those delicate geums at Brickwall Cottage near Cranbrook. There’s the rather magical topiary fantasy of Balmoral Cottage, Benenden, too, created by the unique Charlotte Molesworth.
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