Listen to the track:
“The Garden at Thorn”
William Arkwright - where is he buried ???
Verse 1
In nineteen-nineteen, a man came down
To a house near Wembury shore
William Arkwright was his name
From a line of spinning lore
He bought the place and changed its name
To Thorn, to make things clear
No more mix-ups with South Wembury
The new estate was here
Verse 2
He was firm of hand and strange of thought
A man who liked to roam
Anglican by early light
By dusk, he’d built a dome
He crossed from Rome to doubt and back
Then bowed to East and star
They say he built a minaret
Though no photos show so far
Chorus
Oh Thorn, you bloomed beneath his care
With plants from lands afar
A garden wild, a winding path
No border line or bar
The urns from Trentham standing tall
Ten feet of carved-out pride
And rhododendrons by the gate
That glowed on either side
Verse 3
He wandered far to find his plants
To India and back
A botanist with pockets deep
And time to blaze the track
Gunnera like giant fans
Bamboo in a crowd
And children weaving through the stems
Pretending jungle loud
Verse 4
Down by the Yealm, stuck in the mud
An old Chinese barge lay
We climbed aboard and braved the tide
Most every summer day
Turquoise flanks and dragon’s head
Red eyes and painted grin
We stayed too long, we raced the flood
But always made it in
Chorus
Oh Thorn, you bloomed beneath his care
With plants from lands afar
A garden wild, a winding path
No border line or bar
The dome is gone, the dragon too
But memory still is worn
In every root and ancient tree
That stands around old Thorn
Outro
He died in twenty-three, they say
The gardens lived on still
A man, a dome, a dragon’s head
A house upon the hill