Claire McEvilly

Claire McEvilly is showing at Highdown Gallery from 19 June to 27 June 2027. It's a short run, just over a week, and it sits on the gallery's provisional list of artists and exhibitions for the year.

If you haven't spent much time there, the gallery is part of Highdown Gardens, a chalk garden in the South Downs National Park. Sir Frederick Stern spent 58 years creating it, and the collection of rare, chalk-tolerant plants has been admired since 1910. Stern wrote A Chalk Garden and The Study of the genus Peonia (1946), and he was the first to describe the snowdrop species Galanthus rizehensis. The gardens draw around 80,000 visitors a year, and they feature a waterfall now powered by an off-grid solar system, a Champion tree — the Chinese Fringe Tree — and a pop-up shop run by volunteers. Highdown Gallery is the estate's exhibition space, so the show is tucked right into the gardens themselves.

It's a good spot to combine a bit of art with a walk through the grounds. You can see the exhibition and then head out into the gardens to see the waterfall, the Champion tree, and the plants Stern spent more than half a century tending. The show runs from 19 June to 27 June 2027 at Highdown Gallery, Highdown Gardens, Worthing.