About the event

Bottengoms came into the care of Essex Wildlife Trust following the death of renowned writer and naturalist Ronald Blythe in 2023. Blythe left his home to the Trust with a vision that it should become both a haven for nature and a source of inspiration for future generations of writers, artists, and naturalists. Today, the Trust is working to fulfil that vision, caring for Bottengoms as a home for creative responses to the natural world and wildlife garden.

Cy Baker's involvement with Bottengoms came serendipitously through his work supporting wildlife conservation through art. In 2025, he completed a major collaboration with The Wildlife Trusts, creating artworks inspired by more than 50 nature reserves across the UK, culminating in a national charity auction that raised funds for nature recovery.

Drawn to both the house and its setting, Cy created a series of twelve sketches and one biro drawing exploring Bottengoms and its gardens. His work reflects the uniquely porous relationship between inside and outside that has long defined the house. There is a reason the first room visitors enter is called the Garden Room: at Bottengoms, house and landscape are inseparable. Cy's drawings capture this connection, portraying the building not simply as a structure within a landscape, but as part of the living environment around it.

The exhibition also includes artworks produced during Inspired by Nature, a creative workshop led by Cy during the collaboration with Essex Wildlife Trust. Working with local creatives, the workshop explored how careful observation of the natural world can inspire artistic practice, as espoused by John Nash and Ronald Blythe. The resulting artworks sit alongside Cy's own drawings, demonstrating the many different ways nature and place can spark creativity.