Visit Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage garden in Dungeness, Kent
Derek Jarman was a gay rights activist and filmmaker who stood up for his sexuality, especially after he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986. His first films were experimental Super 8 pictures, and he continued to use the format in his future films, The Last of England and The Garden.
While Jarman’s films are widely celebrated, he is also known for his famous cottage garden at the Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, Kent. Jarman bought the cottage in 1987, just a year after his AIDS diagnosis, and lived there until he died in 1994.
When Jarman bought the cottage, local residents thought he was up to no good. “People thought I was building a garden for magical purposes,” he said at the time, “A white witch out to get the nuclear power station.” Jarman renovated the outside of the property with weatherproof tar, and one of its walls is decorated with lines from a famous poem by John Donne, ‘The Sun Rising’.
Tilda Swinton had been good friends with Jarman and was with the iconic filmmaker when he spotted the property for sale. Discussing that time, Swinton said: “Derek’s father had recently died and left him a small inheritance. Life on Charing Cross road had become somewhat overstimulating, and Derek was looking for a place to be quieter.”
Apparently, Jarman knew quite quickly that he would buy the cottage the first time he entered it. “Within a couple of months, Derek was taking down chintz curtains and prizing open the lid of the first of a gazillion gallons of pitch-black paint with which to anoint his new kingdom,” Swinton added. “First and foremost, the cottage was always a living thing, a practical toolbox for his work.”
While the cottage itself is considered a work of art, its accompanying garden is also a thing of beauty. It was cultivated out of the shingle that forms Dungeness Beach and features many plants that are conducive to growing in a salty seaside environment. Jarman also used manure from a local farm in order to support the nearby businesses; he did not want to be seen as another Londoner coming to escape the city and not contributing to the Kentish culture and economy.
Jarman used the garden cottage as the filming location of his 1990 film The Garden, starring Swinton. The film loosely tells of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, although Christ himself is replaced by a gay couple. Some view the film as an analogy to the difficulty that the gay community had gone through in the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Check out the film’s trailer below and get a feel for Jarman’s beautiful cottage garden.
