Simon Gudgeon shows off a typical sculpture, at Sculpture by the Lakes
Simply Sunday. If you have a day free in your luxury travels, find out what is best in the area – or beyond. Check trip advisor.com and you find the best attraction in Dorset England is Sculpture by the Lakes, in Pallington (it even tops historic Sherborne Castle). One entry says this: ‘It is absolutely amazing here. It is quiet and secluded, and the staff inc Simon are lovely. To top it all off we got engaged there and still can’t think of anywhere better.’ Well, what can the gal say?
I love Sculpture by the Lakes, and the work of its conceptor, English sculptor Simon Gudgeon. His works are in Hyde Park, London, and in a myriad of top private collections around the world. He is a farmer’s son who graduated in law and somehow got diverted into producing bronzes, and other sculptures, that are naturally simplistic.
Only 35 adults – no kids allowed, as they do not ‘go’ with serious sculpture meditation – can visit, every day, the Sculpture park. When it is fine, wander for hours in the 60-acre park, with its lake and wild and mown areas, and 35 big sculptures (you can see small ones, too, in the indoor gallery). Stay at Chewton Glen Hampshire, which has a Gudgeon-curated sculpture walk, and that luxury hotel arranges complimentary entry – and now Summer Lodge will be doing the same. Simon and Monique Gudgeon can, by the way, even find a Mandarin-speaking interpreter, if requested. But the ideal for any nationality, I think, is to bring a picnic, and spend those hours wandering, and learning from the sleek shapes that Simon Gudgeon puts into his sculptures.
