The Tour de France comes to London
OK so this isn’t a folly but it a very endearing garden structure and I couldn’t resist including it.
In early July 2007 the Tour de France started in London. The first day was the Prologue, which took in a tour round the Royal Parks in London before the tour proper set off through Kent to the English Channel on the following day. The weather held and over a million people are estimated to have turned out to watch the race. We don’t get to see much topiary or carpet bedding in public parks these days – too expensive and labour intensive – so this example of “gardening” art combing the two techniques was a welcome addition to the London scene.
These delightful topiary cyclists were commissioned by Mark Wasilewski, Park Manager of St James Park, to commemorate the occasion. They were actually grown in Italy and shipped over to the UK. There was another similar group commissioned by the LB Lambeth near Waterloo.
The Folly Fancier 