Little Sparta

Little Sparta is a garden at Dunsyre in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, created by artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay.

The five-acre Arcadian garden includes concrete poetry in sculptural form, polemic, philosophical aphorisms, together with conventional sculptures and temple-like buildings as well as mature plantings. Altogether it includes over 275 artworks by the artist. In December 2004, a panel of fifty Scottish artists, gallery directors and arts professionals voted Little Sparta to be: "the nation's greatest work of art". Sir Roy Strong has said of Little Sparta that it is: "the only really original garden made in this country since 1945".

The garden has survived several attempts by the local authority to destroy it, and also indifference from the Scottish Arts Council, since being established on its then desolate site in 1966/1967. Originally called Stonypath, it was re-named Little Sparta in 1983. Hamilton Finlay lived adjacent to the garden from its founding in 1966 until his death forty year later, in 2006. There is now a Little Sparta Trust that plans to preserve the garden for the nation by raising enough to pay for an ongoing maintenance fund. Trustees include Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate. It is possible to visit the garden, on a limited basis, from June through to September, on Friday and Sunday afternoons only.

Further reading

* Jesse Sheeler and Andrew Lawson. "Little Sparta: The Garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay". (2003).

* Robin Gillanders. "Little Sparta". (1998).

External links

* [http://www.littlesparta.co.uk/ Little Sparta Trust]
* [http://paint.mentalpaint.net/Scotland/Little%20Sparta/ Little Sparta – Images]