EARLY SPRING PROGRAMME
1st March – 30th April 2025
Private Viewings of Works from our Residency Programme
Viewings by Appointment on Fridays : 10am – 5pm
On Saturdays by private arrangement
To Book a Private Viewing please use this Calendly Link
THE 2025 ALDE VALLEY SPRING FESTIVAL
Times and Dates
LAUNCH : 11am-5pm - Saturday 3rd May
OPENING TIMES : 10am-6pm - First Two Weekends of MaySat 3rd + Sun 4th + Mon 5th May
Fri 10th + Sat 11th + Sun 12th May
We are holding a small Spring Festival Programme over the first two weekends in May during the Sakura / Blossom Season of the farm’s young Japanese flowering cherry trees. We are delighted to be presenting new collections of paintings from residency collaborations with very three gifted Suffolk artists: Emma Green, Claudia Silva and Ian Sedge.
NEWSLETTER
We send out a regular email to our followers with the latest news about exhibitions, farm arts residencies and other local arts / community events. Please click here if you would like to subscribe to our e-Newsletter.
If you would like to find out more about an Artist, Exhibition or particular Residency Collection, please click here.
RESIDENCY COLLECTIONS
We hold a selection of beautiful etchings, drawings, paintings and textiles by artists and makers who are part of our land-based arts residency programme. Private viewings are welcomed on Fridays between 10am and 5pm by prior appointment. Viewings on Saturdays are also possible by private arrangement. Catalogues of all available works are presented below.
PERIENNE CHRISTIAN ~ Alive in the Landscape - Catalogue available here
MELANIE COMBER ~ The Walks Land Residency - Catalogue available here
EMMA GREEN ~ The Cherry Ingram Blossom Residency - Catalogue available here
JASON GATHORNE-HARDY ~ Flock & Livestock Drawing - Catalogue available here
JASON GATHORNE-HARDY ~ Seagull Drawings - Catalogue available here
BECKY MUNTING ~ The Wildfowl, Waterbird & Wetland Residency - Catalogue available here
JENNY NUTBEEM ~ Suffolk Sakura Silk Scarves - Catalogue available here
JULIAN PERRY ~ The Pollard Residency - Catalogue available here
IAN SEDGE ~ The Upper Alde Valley - Catalogue available here
CLAUDIA SILVA ~ Gardens of Great Glemham - Please email about available works
RUTH STAGE ~ Into the Light : Exploring the River Alde - Catalogue available here
SALLY TAYLOR ~ The Farmyard Residency - Catalogue available here
JANE WORMELL ~ The Hedge Residency - Catalogue available here
For more information about each of the residency collaborations, please see the section on each artist below.
HISTORIC WORKS BY HARRY BECKER
We also hold a large collection of lithographs, drawings and watercolours by the reclusive but highly regarded artist Harry Becker, who lived in Suffolk from 1913 to 1928.
Lithographs, Drawings & Paintings - Catalogue available here
Catalogue of Watercolours, Drawings & Oil Paintings Catalogue available here
MORE ABOUT GALLOPER-SANDS
Galloper-Sands is the year round online gallery for works arising from The Alde Valley Spring Festival residency programme at White House Farm, located in the beautiful Upper Alde Valley of East Suffolk UK.
For the past twenty years the farm has been managed using a Set of Sustainability Criteria. Central to this approach for land management is the idea that systems enrichment is vital to our future - in terms of biodiversity, knowledge gain, shared learning, skills and distributed income; and the belief that all land-based activities should be sensitive and proportionate to their social, ecological and economic setting.
The residency programme at White House Farm works with these values and in doing so it celebrates the vital connections that exist between food, farming, landscape and the arts, both in the UK and at other locations around the world. Almost all the residencies are rooted in the landscape at White House Farm and the adjoining Alde Valley and Suffolk Coast – with some located at other venues in the UK and internationally through association with the farm.
Most of the residencies run for periods of 2-5 years. This gives the artists, makers and writers with whom we are so fortunate to work time to respond to the landscape and their chosen subject of inquiry. All the residencies are directly linked to ongoing conservation projects at the farm. The latter are designed to deliver direct significant ecological enrichment to the local landscape – and it means that all works on show are linked to ecological gain.
The work arising from the residency programme has consequently become part of the farm's seasonal harvest – as much as the crops in the field, timber from the woods or wool from our small resident sheep flock. Increasingly, some residency projects are also connected to international cross-cultural collaborations to communities from Malaysia, Japan and Nepal.
MORE ABOUT THE RESIDENCY PROGRAMME
PERIENNE CHRISTIAN
Alive in the Landscape : Dreaming a New Dream
Alive in the Landscape is an ongoing multi-year collaboration with Perienne Christian. It focuses on the soft eroding landscape of the Suffolk coast and the plants that can be found growing here – in particular along the Deben Peninsula. This low-lying land has a character all of its own. It is bordered on one side by the North Sea, into which it yields its soft, sandy cliffs with the passing tides; and on the other by the meandering creeks, salt marshes and mudflats of the Deben Estuary.
More recently, the artist’s focus has shifted to the Forest of Dean – but retaining an interest in wild plants and their properties. As Perienne Christian's work has grown in scale, depth and confidence, the viewer is increasingly drawn into her vision of the world. It is a fascinating and deeply engaging place to behold. Her paintings, monoprints and etchings from the residency, as much as the plants that she studies, guide the viewer on a journey into the constantly changing British landscape, offering a window into the artist's richly observed and visually vibrant world.
Perienne Christian - Catalogue available here
MELANIE COMBER
The Walks Land Residency
The Walks is the largest field at White House Farm. It has shifted from purely arable rotations to a whole range of land use experiments : a market garden; a permaculture hub; a tree nursery; a skylark plot; new woodland; and arable fallow. The late DJ and composer Mira Calix observed that it was like a vast 22 acre blank canvas – and suggested large landscape-scale arts interventions on it.
So far, we have treated it both as a stage for ecological research and for a series of Land Residencies. The most recent of these was From this Land ~ The Walks Land Residency with the painter Melanie Comber. During a year long collaboration, which spanned the covid epidemic, Melanie responded to the changing appearance of The Walks through the seasons : as crops came and went; as rain and frosts replaced scorching sunshine; and as new areas of the field were left to go wild, whilst other parts were brought back under the plough.
The paintings that emerged from the residency – made with raw pigment applied to textured surfaces – captured Melanie’s impressions not just of the field’s surface and texture, but also of passing sounds, the temperature at the time of a visit or objects found lying on the ground. They feel like the land re-written or re-interpreted and invite the viewer to experience landscape in new, refreshing ways.
Melanie Comber - Catalogue available here
EMMA GREEN
A Suffolk Sakura : The 'Cherry' Ingram Blossom Residency
Emma Green's Blossom Residency follows the flowering season of over fifty cherry trees that grow at White House Farm and in the adjoining Vale of Great Glemham. Her paintings focus on Matsumae varieties created by Mr Masatoshi Asari from Hokkaido in Japan as well as other varieties created or revived by Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram. Recent subjects include the following Prunus varieties : Taihaku, Hokusai, Kursar, Korean Hill Cherry, Okame, Collingwood Ingram, Kanzan, Fragrant Cloud, Chocolate Ice / Matsumae-Fuki, Taoyame, Amanogawa and Fugenzo.
Working with the writer Naoko Abe and selected tree nurseries, we are exploring the creation of a new Matsumae Cherry Collection and Masatoshi Asari Peace Park at White House Farm and in Great Glemham village - in tribute to Mr Masatoshi Asari's lifelong devotion to flowering cherries as messengers of peace and reconciliation. We are also exploring a collaboration between Emma Green and the composer / Taiko Drummer Joji Hirota for the 2026 Alde Valley Spring Festival.
Emma Green - Catalogue available here
JASON GATHORNE-HARDY
Flock Drawings + Seagull Drawings
The Flock Drawings are part of an ongoing collection of work by Jason Gathorne-Hardy that focuses on the sheep flock at White House Farm. Almost all of the drawings are made from life by the artist whilst sitting with the flock at different times of day. Many are drawn at dawn or in the early hours of the morning when the sheep are gathered together like a flotilla of moored boats at anchor under old oak trees, or when they head off to graze on the pastures in the floodplain of the Upper Alde Valley. Other drawings are made at dusk or during rainstorms, when water falling from the sky softens the paper. The flock is a source of fine lustrous wool which we are trialing for spinning and weaving. Other work available by Jason Gathorne-Hardy includes seagull drawings and landscape drawings from Cumbria and Spain.
Jason Gathorne-Hardy – Flock & Livestock Drawings Catalogue available here
Jason Gathorne-Hardy – Seagull Drawings Catalogue available here
BECKY MUNTING
The Wildfowl, Waterbird & Wetland Residency
Downstream of White House Farm, the landscape that embraces the River Alde slowly transforms itself from quiet inland river valleys full of pastures, ditches and alder carr to the comparatively vast areas of mudflats, salt marshes and shingle that define the coastal landscape of East Suffolk and the Suffolk River Valleys. These rivers are part of a larger delta that extends southwards to include the rivers Colne, Blackwater, Thames and Medway; and northwards to enfold the River Blyth and River Waveney. Combined, these rivers and the low-lying maritime delta that they form are globally significant as a home for wildfowl and waterbirds. It is the birdlife in this landscape that artist Becky Munting explores and celebrates in the Wildfowl, Waterbird & Wetland Residency.
Becky Bunting - Catalogue available here
JENNY NUTBEEM
Textile & Natural Dye Residency ~ Suffolk Sakura Silk Scarves
This ongoing residency project explores natural dyes at the farm. In 2022 and 2023, Jenny created stunning collections of new Suffolk Sakura Silk Scarves. These were made using blossom and leaves collected from cherry trees at the farm and dyes gathered from other plants growing nearby. The results were two exquisite collections of 24 hand printed and hand dyed Suffolk Sakura Silk Scarves - made in pairs but sold individually. They were hung in the order in which the cherry trees flowered, with an invitation for viewers to walk through the avenue of scarves and have a wish at the end. Jenny has continued to explore this residency collaboration in 2024, creating new seasonal collections of scarves. We always have a selection of Jenny’s unique Suffolk Sakura Silk Scarves in stock. The current catalogue presents an autumn collection of sumptuously soft scarves printed with fallen leaves from the farm’s cherry trees. Most were made in the autumn of 2024, printed with leaves from cherry varieties that are linked to Collingwood Ingram and Mr Masatoshi Asari.
Jenny Nutbeem - Catalogue available here
JULIAN PERRY
The Pollard Residency
Our collaboration with Julian Perry followed a major solo show by the artist There Rolls the Deep - The Rising Sea Level Paintings at Southampton City Art Gallery in 2022. For The Pollard Residency, Julian explored the appearance and distribution of veteran pollards in the Vale of Great Glemham and Upper Alde Valley. Some of the oldest oak trees in East Anglia are pollards - and there is a genuine concern that the absence of pollarding in modern forestry practices may lead to the loss of many veteran trees. Many of the oldest oak pollards at the farm stand as sentinels in the local landscape. They are messengers from a different time, in which there were no combustion engines and the air was cleaner and wildlife was more abundant. Their presence is perhaps a reminder for us to treat ourselves as co-habitants of the planet and work harder to fetch back more wild plants and animals into our landscape. Julian's paintings have a similar quality : they are like markers in time, capturing the extraordinary character of these trees - and perhaps encouraging us to welcome more wildlife into our daily lives.
Julian Perry - Catalogue available here
IAN SEDGE
The Upper Alde Valley
We are delighted to offer a new collection of paintings by Ian Sedge. All the works started their life within one or two miles of the farm along field edges, footpaths and quiet lanes. They present glimpses of the beautiful Upper Alde Valley above its junction with the Rivers Fromus and Ore. The paintings feel alive. The freshness of the land is within them : the water, the mud, the foliage and the reviving views of the local countryside. Ian is currently working on a landscape commission to paint Great Glemham House in its historic parkland setting
Ian Sedge - Catalogue available here
CLAUDIA SILVA
Gardens of Great Glemham
The Alde Valley Spring Festival had its first beginnings in a cottage near the Church in Great Glemham village. This was the setting for a small art exhibition in the spring of 2004. It was a group show, presenting paintings and drawings by Tessa Newcomb, Jason Gathorne-Hardy and Fidelity Cranbrook. At the heart of the exhibition was a series of murals about the village painted by Tessa Newcomb. Twenty one years on, the cottage is now home to the artist Claudia Silva and her family. This new residency collaboration Gardens of Great Glemham builds on the history of the visual arts in East Suffolk and some of the wonderful gardens in Great Glemham – most notably the walled kitchen garden at Glemham House. This beautiful garden, when under the stewarship of Caroline Cranbrook, was the subject of the book An Artist in the Garden [Full Circle Editions, 2012]. It is now in the care of her daughter in law, the gardener and writer Tilly Ware, and it continues to flourish in new hands. The residency with Claudia draws inspiration from the previous collaboration with Tessa Newcomb and the influence of other gardens on the visual arts in East Anglia : most notably Benton End in Hadleigh, Bottengoms in Wormingford and The Red House in Aldeburgh.
Claudia Silva - Please email about available works
RUTH STAGE
Into the Light : An Exploration of the River Alde & its Tributaries
In this residency collaboration we are working with the painter Ruth Stage to explore the course of the River Alde as it flows through the East Suffolk countryside, from its hidden beginnings near Badingham to join the broad estuary at Snape, before flowing on into the sea at Shingle Street. As the river makes its winding journey through the countryside of East Suffolk, the plant life and scenery along the it’s edges changes dramatically : from thickly vegetated hedgerows, pastures and woodland to tall reed beds and herb-rich salt marshes. Working in egg tempera, Ruth’s paintings capture the changing scenery, looking into the light through the rich and varied botany along the river’s margins. They often have an ethereal quality, suffused with both sunlight and the quiet beauty of the landscapes that they portray.
Ruth Stage - Catalogue available here
SALLY TAYLOR
The Farm Residency
Our collaboration with Sally Taylor spanned the spring and summer of 2023. During this time, Sally drew the sheep flock at the farm and painted some of the surviving horse harness – in particular two old leather collars that were once worn by the farm’s Suffolk Punch horses. The last working horse left the farm in the early 1960s, but the presence of the Suffolk Punches that once lived here still lingers in the barns in many subtle ways, from gnawed mangers to the names of the last horsemen etched into the plasterwork beside a stable door.
Sally Taylor - Catalogue available here
JANE WORMELL
The Hedge Residency
Jane Wormell’s residency celebrates the importance of hedgerows as a home for wildlife in a farmed landscape. They can be a vital source of food, shelter and homes for many creatures. Well-established hedges are often remnants of older landscapes, with dozens of plant species living in them. We have been testing eight different ways of managing hedges at the farm, to see which is best for wildlife. Their presence in the landscape has what we call a ‘woolly jumper’ effect : the land becomes warmer and more welcoming to wildlife. Jane’s ongoing Hedge Residency explores the abundant biodiversity of the hedges through her detailed, immersive paintings.
Jane Wormell - Catalogue available here
HISTORIC COLLECTIONS
HARRY BECKER
Drawings, Lithographs & Watercolours
We are delighted to be able to offer for sale lithographs, drawings and paintings by Harry Becker. Almost all works are sourced from the Loftus Family Collection, which received much of the artist’s estate. Harry Becker grew up in Colchester in the 1870s and trained at the Antwerp Academy from the age of 14, a few years ahead of van Gogh. He was celebrated in his own lifetime for his etchings and lithographs, many of which feature in important museum collections around Europe. He was less well known for his drawings and paintings, but he is arguably one of East Anglia’s most important impressionists from the first half of the twentieth century.
He moved with his family, his wife Georgina and daughter Janet, to Wenhaston in East Suffolk in the early 1900s. Here, until his death in 1928, he spent his days and the passing seasons watching and drawing people at work in the local landscape. His work has more recently gained a much wider audience and a very loyal following. We are honoured and delighted to be able to work on behalf of the Loftus Family Collection, releasing selected works for sale. We always have a good selection of work on show or for viewing by appointment.
Catalogue of Lithographs available here
Catalogue of Watercolours, Drawings & Oil Paintings available here
WRITING AT GREAT GLEMHAM
Since 2014, White House Farm has hosted an informal residency project called Writing at Great Glemham. This takes inspiration from a rich local seam of rural writing that includes the work of George Crabbe, HW Freeman, George Ewart Evans, Ronald Blythe, Hugh Barrett and, more recently, Melissa Harrison - with Adrian Bell and Julian Seymour also writing nearby. In the past ten years, we have welcomed over thirty writers to the farm and the beautiful Vale of Great Glemham – and also to more remote writing venues in mid Wales and the Howgill Fells of Cumbria.
Words are an important currency in our lives. The ones we choose to use and the ones we choose to discard has a bearing on how we live our lives and also how we experience the act of being alive. Words have shape, weight and form as well as meaning. There is also an often overlooked musicality to language, which means that words can have resonance or effect that reaches beyond their intellectual meaning into the realm of sonic impact.
One of Suffolk's more idiosyncratic local authors - from the Deben river valley - was Nathaniel Fairfax of Woodbridge. In his publication Bulk & Selvedge of the World [1674] he took a firm view on vocabulary and dialect :
"I think it will become those of us who have a more hearty love for what is our own, than wanton longings after what is others, to fetch back some of our own words that have been jostled out in the wrong .. or else to call in from the fields and waters, shops and workhousen, that well-fraught world of words that answers works; by which all learners are taught to do and not to make a clatter."
Fairfax was writing from a land in which Isaac and Ash was a scythe, Phoebe was the sun and a mavis was a thrush. All are local dialect : they are words that somehow resonate with the soft Suffolk landscape. We are returning to the Writing at Great Glemham residency programme in 2024 after past collaborations with the University of East Anglia, Flipside Festival, the Suffolk Poetry Society and Poetry in Aldeburgh.
PLACES TO MEET & EAT NEARBY
For more refreshments and dining, we recommend visits to the following local pubs and cafes, all of which are within 2 miles of the farm.
The Crown Inn – Great Glemham – IP17 2DA
Juniper Barn – Rendham – IP17 2AZ
White Horse – Sweffling – IP17 2BB
White Horse – Rendham – IP17 2AF
An excellent choice of cafes, restaurants and delis can be found further afield in local villages, market towns and coastal settlements including Framlingham, Yoxford, Peasenhall, Saxmundham, Snape, Walberswick, Southwold, Thorpeness, Dunwich, Aldeburgh, Orford and Woodbridge.
Location : How to Find Us
We are located on The Grove lane between the villages of Great Glemham and Sweffling in the beautiful Upper Alde Valley of East Suffolk UK :
White House Farm
The Grove
Great Glemham
Suffolk IP17 1LS
Find us
Contact : enquiries@galloper-sands.co.uk / [00 44] 1728 663531
Instagram : @gallopersands | @aldevalleyfestival
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Galloper-Sands is part of The Alde Valley Spring Festival Ltd - Company No 7592977 - Based at White House Farm, Suffolk UK.