Nick Stewart Smith

The picture was drawn by Ellie Gibson, showing me kneeling beneath the old quince tree at Lambeth Palace, having just discovered an unexpected wild orchid growing in the long grass. It is one of 35 of her original illustrations included in my first book The Thousand Year Old Garden: Inside the Secret Garden at Lambeth Palace (The History Press, 2023).

I have been a gardener almost all my working life, at the palace until summer 2022 and before that for No.10 at Chequers in the Chilterns. I was also at Overbecks for ten years, looking after the stunning subtropical garden there for the National Trust on the south Devon coast. These days, I’m a freelancer, working mostly in London between Peckham and Camberwell.