Benton End

Jon Lys Turner's biography of the illustrator Richard Chopping and his partner Denis Wirth-Miller, both alumni of the East Anglian School, characterises it as a place for the free exchange of artistic ideas and techniques.

Thanks to Morris' work in the vegetable garden and Lett-Haines' enthusiasm for cooking, the community at Benton End did not experience hardships on the scale of wartime London – indeed, according to Lys Turner, the war years were "markedly hedonistic".

"[9] The illustrator Kathleen Hale, who wrote the Orlando the Marmalade Cat series, was also a frequent visitor to Benton End, as Lett-Haines' lover and as a friend and informal pupil of Morris.

[7] Morris grew rare and exotic plants at Benton End, which he collected on expeditions to the Mediterranean and North Africa and in many cases introduced to cultivation in Britain for the first time.

[10] He planted them in an idiosyncratic style which admirers have viewed as an extension of his work as a painter: Beth Chatto described the garden as a "bewildering, mind-stretching, eye-widening canvas of colour, textures and shapes".

Constance Spry displayed rhubarb from his garden in her London shop,[14] and Vita Sackville-West, a frequent visitor to Benton End, grew his irises at Sissinghurst.