Things to see in the House at Croome

Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration

Bringing the Hortus Croomensis to life

Running until 1 March 2026

Beautiful new artworks have been created by members of the Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration to showcase the plants of the Hortus Croomensis that still thrive at Croome today. The illustrations will be on display in the Library until February 2025.

Founded in 1993, Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration caters for all those with an interest in botanical illustration, including botanists, gardeners, illustrators and art collectors. The Society welcomes artists with all levels of skill, from total beginners to established artists. They currently have 98 members, reaching far beyond Gloucestershire.

Pages from Nature continues in the outdoors

Running until 1 March 2026

As part of Pages from Nature, we invite you to pick up a ‘Walk through the Pleasure Grounds’ guidebook inspired by the Hortus Croomensis with activities to help you experience not only the sights, but also scents, sounds and feelings of the Georgian parkland. Find out the history behind the landscape design; take time to sketch in the booklet, pause along the way to smell scents in the special scent boxes – can you guess what they are?  Read quotes from the 1824 text to feel transported back 200 years.

£3 per guidebook (normal admission applies)

Small Creatures of Avon Meadows

Throughout 2024 Croome and Meadow Arts are collaborating with young people from Pershore to explore our Pages from Nature theme inspired by the landscape and plant collection at Croome.  

Hortus Croomensis Croome x Pershore includes the exhibition Small Creatures of Avon Meadows, 20 cast bronzes made by young people from Pershore Riverside Centre with artist duo Juneau Projects in 2022 in response to the landscape and biodiversity of nearby Avon Meadows.  

At Croome, artist Sarah Taylor Silverwood has been commissioned to co-create new artworks with young people from Pershore Riverside Centre and Pershore High School using drawings, illustration and animation to respond to our landscape here.  

Meadow Arts is a dynamic contemporary visual arts charity based in the rural West Midlands. Croome’s creative programme is committed to socially engaged practice. We work with artists and communities to bring to life the stories of the past for audiences of today. This collaboration brings local young people, who have been working within Meadow Arts since 2020, into dialogue with themes of landscape and nature to engender connection and a sense of belonging.  Meadow Arts Website

Small Creatures of Avon Meadows will be on display as part of our Pages from Nature exhibition in Croome’s Saloon. New works by Sarah Taylor Silverwood were launched in July to coincide with our Summer of Play.  

 

 

Wild Imagination Exhibition with Sarah Taylor Silverwood

Wild Imagination is a new animation and accompanying soundtrack by artist Sarah Taylor Silverwood.

The animation is a creative response to Croome’s Pages from Nature theme, inspired by the Hortus Croomensis, a comprehensive guide to Croome’s abundant and exotic plant collection written by William Dean, Head Gardener at Croome in 1824. Sarah worked with young participants to explore some of the plants found in William Dean’s publication that still thrive today. They gathered drawings and captured sound recordings that the artist transformed into characters that go on a wild adventure across Croome’s gardens.

Field recordings and observations from the participants have been produced into an accompanying soundtrack produced by artist Anna Palmer.

Sarah Taylor Silverwood is an artist based in Birmingham whose drawing practice works across animation, illustration, textiles, ceramics, sculpture, objects for the home and public art. She combines her interest in making and storytelling by working collaboratively with others to challenge familiar forms of imagery and language. Wild Imagination was commissioned is part of a wider collaboration between Meadow Arts and Croome which sees both organisations work with young people from Pershore to make creative responses to landscape, nature and heritage spaces.

This project is generously supported by the Tony Brooks legacy and public funding from Arts Council England and The Elmley Foundation.

 

Robert Adam bookcases display

A monumental set of mahogany mid-18th-century bookcases, designed by renowned architect, Robert Adam (1728-1792) for Croome Court have returned from the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London.

The bookcases were in the Library for which they were designed for over 200 years before leaving Croome in 1973. These bookcases were not just pieces of furniture designed to hold books but were designed, made, and fitted by craftsmen responsible for three of the finest of Croome’s Neoclassical rooms designed by Robert Adam (1728-92).

These highly significant pieces were one of the last of the house’s original interiors to survive into the late 20th century intact. Uncertainty over the mansion’s future in the mid-20th-century, led to the selling of much of the collection in a series of auctions in the 1940s.

In 1752, the 6th Earl was said to be ‘furnishing his house with elegance’ employing four of the most pre-eminent people or firms operating in mid-18th-century Britain: Robert Adam; William Vile (d. 1767) & John Cobb (1715-78) and Sefferin Alken (fl. 1744-83). John Hobcraft (fl. 1757-84) installed the bookcases into the space.

Aside from their association with one of Adam’s most celebrated early Neoclassical interiors, the bookcases stand-alone as superb examples of mid-18th-century English furniture. This is why the Victoria & Albert Museum was keen to acquire them, purchasing them in 1975 with the aid of a generous anonymous donation.

To allow Croome to re-install the bookcases funds will need to be raised to allow this momentous work to be carried out.

Permanent installations

Two artists were commissioned to create original works to present select pieces from the collection in ways that are thought-provoking and respond to Croome’s spirit of ‘expect the unexpected’.

Bouke de Vries’ ‘Golden Box’ and Will Datson’s ‘Chair Play’ installation give a new perspective on these fascinating objects and the Treasures of Croome.