If you go down to the Chelsea Flower Show today, you're sure of a big surprise... Chiefly Country Life's 'Outdoor Drawing Room', an Italianate-style space, inspired by the loggias you might hope to find on the ground floor of a beautiful country home — in Italy or the UK.
We're thrilled at the reception we've had from visitors to the show — and even more thrilled that Chelsea's judges have given our drawing room a four-star award.
The stand was the brainchild of the magazine's Interiors Editor, Giles Kime, but also interior designer Isabella Worsley and landscape designer Hugo Elwes, of Studio Elwes — two hugely exciting and talented, young, British creatives (Isabella is 36 and Hugo is 34).
The project began more than six months ago, in Isabella's living room, where we discussed what a warm and joyful space that makes the most of both of the indoors and great outdoors might look like to the Country Life reader.
Since then, we've exchanged more emails than we can count, argued over the logistics of how best to manoeuvre 1,250 copies of the magazine from one part of London to the next, and discussed the merits a myriad different plants.
It's been an intense four days of building, styling and hoovering — but we are finally ready to welcome as many of you as possible to our stand. We are hugely proud of it — and we hope that by visiting, or simply looking at these images, you are inspired to create your own transitional space to allow maximum enjoyment of a garden through to the evening and into the Autumn.
The Country Life 'Outdoor Drawing Room' is at stand PW210 at the Chelsea Flower Show from May 19 to 24 May. For more information, visit the Country Life Chelsea Flower Show hub or the RHS website
Isabella Worsley trained at the KLC School of Design, worked for Guy Goodfellow and the hotelier Kit Kemp, and then set up her own practice; Hugo Elwes studied garden design at the Inchbald School of Design before working for Arabella Lennox Boyd and, most recently, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan before setting up his own design studio.
Isabella designed many of the fabrics on the stand, including the awning — pictured top right — which is her Ionic Stripe silk-linen mix in Copper.
Hugo arranged small, hand-thrown terracotta pots with blush-toned poppies on top of the fireplace. The paint was made to Isabella's specification by Rose of Jericho, which is based in Dorset.
A statement chair from Munder Skiles adds interest and a spot for quiet reading or reflection.
Munder Skiles's elegant Belmont chairs in all-weather wicker sit infront of a stone trough, made from Lansdown limestone by Artorius Faber.
A framed, black and white photograph of the gardens at Iford, in Somerset, hangs above an antique credenza. It was taken by Clive Nichols for Country Life magazine.
To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025.
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