It all began with a love of Magnolias …

and a memory …

My first music teacher, Mrs Broadmore, had previously lived in a house which I used to regularly bike past on my way to school, known as Magnolia Lodge. I thought it such a grand house and the huge old Magnolia tree out the front was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen - in spring when in flower.

Mrs Broadmore, in her final years, owned another gracious home just on the edge of town with a smaller Magnolia tree growing. It was a large two-story house similar in style to the one on Grove Road. Every week I would wheel my bike through the gate, parking it just inside the entrance and walk down the path taking in all the delights of her cottage garden which was full of fragrance. She treated me to afternoon tea upstairs and then we enjoyed playing hide and seek downstairs in her beautiful drawing room and downstairs bedroom before my piano lesson.

Magnolia House is named in Mrs Broadmore’s memory.

PS I am busy planting Magnolias so that one day they will be grand old dames too.