A gloriousy sunny photo of poet William Cowper's summerhouse 'sulking room' with added tulips to raise your spirits this Sunday. See it in all its glory at The Cowper and Newton Museum in Olney.
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Bryan's Ground, owned by David Wheeler and Simon Dorrell, comprises three acres of lovely gardens on the border with Wales which also take in this rather splendid Sulking House. It is also the HQ for the magazine Hortus. Photo above by corydora on flickr where you'll find lots of other lovely photos of the gardens. 
18th century man of letters William Cowper also had what he called a Sulking Room in the garden at his home in Orchard Side in Buckinghamshire which is detailed by The Cowper and Newton Museum and pictured below. It was here that Cowper wrote much of his poetry and prose and kept pipes and tobacco under a loose floorboard. He commented:"As soon as breakfast is over, I retire to my nutshell of a summer house which is my verse manufactory...here I write all that I write in the summer time, whether to the Public or to my friends. It is secure from all noise, and a refuge from intrusion...I write in a nook that I call my bouderie; it is a Summerhouse not much bigger than a Sedan chair, the door of which opens into the garden that is now crowded with pinks, roses and honeysuckles and the window into my neighbour's orchard..."
For the latest in our occasional Friday Finery series we're very grateful to the The Cowper & Newton Museum in Olney for this lovely photo of William Cowper's summerhouse (or 'sulking room' as he called it) enjoying a sunny spring day today.
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