November 30, 2025
You Are What You Give with... Charlotte Molesworth, Artist & Gardener
This week, we are honoured to welcome the Topiary Queen herself, Charlotte Molesworth, to share her Christmas traditions and thoughtful presents.
A universally adored and admired artist and gardener, Charlotte presides over a wonderland of giant peacocks and other fantastical, topiarised tree-sculptures at Balmoral Cottage, where she lives with her equally wonderful husband, Donald.
After requesting yew saplings in lieu of wedding presents, for the past 40 years they have created a wild and otherworldly garden in which we were lucky enough to be allowed to shoot Scribble & Daub’s Christmas decoration collection in September.
I sat down by a roaring stove with Charlotte earlier this month to talk about Christmases past, and the things that truly bring joy and pleasure at this time of year.
As a child, what did the big day look like for you, what were your family's Christmas traditions?
My parents ran a farm, and a farm shop, and so the run up to Christmas was always very busy, everyone coming for their sprouts and potatoes.
My mother would come up with wonderfully clever ideas for decorating the shop - I remember her making great pyramids of apples on pretty old pedestal dishes, spiked with bay leaves.
They worked right up until Christmas eve, so there was terribly little time for decorating at home, but there was one thing she always did, which was to make a beautiful crib scene out of modelling clay, and she would dress the shepherds and the kings and Mary and Joseph and the baby! I still have it now, we take it out every year.
We always had a big, beautiful tree, but my father was very old fashioned and superstitious, and wouldn't let us take it into the house and decorate it until Christmas eve! My mother had trunks of decorations; delicate, spidery metal tinsel, and pretty silver glass baubles, and she made the fairy doll for the top of the tree using wire, scraps of our old vests and things, and little net wings - it was absolutely beautiful. She made string puppets for us as presents too!
Presents were very minimal then; we all had just one, and a stocking - always a tangerine at the bottom, and things like a new toothbrush, sweets, and useful bits and bobs. Parents didn’t spend a lot of money, Christmas wasn’t as commercial as it is now.
There are endless uses for our lengths of silk Satin ribbon
as seen here on Charlotte & Donald's door knocker.
Have you continued these traditions, or created your own?
We’ve pretty much carried them on. We didn’t have children of our own, so of course that makes a difference, but we did have my nieces and nephews who would come and stay at Christmas, and we’d make stockings and so on. We always put out my mother’s crib, which I inherited.
I’ve made a Christmas card every year since we moved here. And the cards have told the story of our lives. My mother always encouraged us to do it, and it’s something I’ve loved carrying on. I always draw or lino cut something to do with what has happened that year, and print them all myself. Last year, when the dogs and the donkey died - it was awful - and I had to have them all flying with their little wings, it was terribly sad. That is key to Christmas for me.
And cooking. Making Christmas pudding, mince pies… it’s the food that makes Christmas isn’t it? We did grow our own turkey one year! He was really quite grumpy, so that made it easier when the time came…
The ultimate Christmas tree, a topiary spiral many decades in
the making, bejewelled with our hand-painted decorations.
What is your most prized Christmas decoration and why?
I’ve still got the fairy doll! She really is getting a bit tatty now…
Do you have any unusual or signature decorating traditions? What can we borrow from the gardening world when decking the halls?
I only ever use foliage. Ivy’s wonderful! I put it all around, stapled or wired to the picture rail of the cottage. Ivy is just key to Christmas decorations. Holly is pretty if kept in water, because the berries stay fresh, and I love it on the table, and it looks beautiful with candles - though be careful as it’s highly inflammable!
When you take it all down - which must be by Twelfth Night - you have to burn the first bit of holly or ivy on the fire for good luck.
What is the best Christmas gift you have ever received?
Do you know what? It was moving in here, 41 years ago. We had two cats, two dogs, seven chickens and a donkey, and we all moved in on Christmas eve! We didn't really have anything that first Christmas night, just one table, two chairs, and a bed. But we lit the Rayburn and it was so warm in here, and it was just wonderful. We didn't do the crib then, a bit too busy!! The church bells rang on Christmas morning, and the donkey (Mrs Watso) used to do the Christmas service every year after that - the church is at the end of our lane. When we came here in the old days, carollers would come up and sing in our kitchen.
And what's the best gift that you have given?
Well, I'm trying to think… Perhaps I have to say when I spun and knitted this ghastly looking jersey for Donald. I’m not exactly a knitter. But he did like that.
Charlotte's Gifts to Give & to Receive
(Editor’s Notes in italics, gloriously exuberant emphasis and punctuation, all Charlotte’s own!)
"I love LAVENDER bags - preferably homemade to give AND receive!!!!! One can NEVER have TOO MANY!!!!"
Try these from The Natural Dye Works in beautiful, botanically sourced hues.
"The RIGHT book for the right person. Braiding Sweet Grass is going to a nephew this year!!!! This is Happiness for another friend!!!!! A TRULY HAPPY READ!!!!"
If you want to be very generous, and give something to last well beyond Christmas, support an independent publisher or bookshop by buying someone a subscription like this one from the exquisite Persephone Books.
"Socks go down well - another friend has a 1940’s sock knitting machine and we are nearly ALWAYS VERY LUCKY recipients!!!!!"
I was lucky enough to see the ones Charlotte is referring to when conducting this interview, and can confirm they are very special, but for those without such creative contacts, I suggest a trip to Freight who sell my favourites.
"Potted up BULBS are a good gift. Again - worth collecting good containers during the year! Also finding pretty jugs and filling them with red dogwood, cornus elegantissima, holly berries etc which are all well received. I used to always make Christmas garlands but less so now!! A bunch of chestnut, red dogwood, berried holly etc. tied with raffia is always popular. Raffia is a MUST at Christmas as it so quick and easy, and always looks the business."
Nab some last minute Paperwhite bulbs & a classic Whichford pot
"Art materials are always good as enjoyable AND useful - an art shop is a good source for young and old!!!"
The greatest of these is surely London’s L Cornelissen & Son - how about a beautiful bottle of their exclusive Iron Oak Gall ink.
"Fingerless gloves. I give these as we know a dear elderly woman who knits mens, womens and little ones’ in beautiful moss stitch!!!!"
If you don’t have a talented knitter in your acquaintance, these gloves are a cosy option.
"I LOVE making Christmas puddings and do buy pudding basins in charity shops throughout the year and they are a good pressie!!! Also mince pies filling a good tin - usually also found in a charity shop!!!! A friend always makes us cheese, walnut & chilly, crispy biscuits which we adore!!!"
"I was given a magnetic-clasp MACRAME necklace- one of the BEST gifts I have had as SO LIGHT and easy to wear- colourful and classy!!!"
For crafty folk, here’s a tutorial on how to make a macrame necklace yourself, and for the rest of us, the online marketplaces of the world will furnish you with many other options to purchase.
"Another friend makes bath salts with magnesium salts in a jar stuffed with rose petals, lavender and some essential oils added!!"
Once again, an option here to make your own or to buy some from Toast.
The topiary columns guarding the entrance to Charlotte & Donald’s
colourful cottage, fluttering with our Ribbons in Bright.
Read On...
If you would like to read more about Charlotte's fascinating life and home, these two profiles by the Financial Times and the World of Interiors capture it beautifully.
Charlotte embodies everything we admire and advocate at Scribble & Daub - an elegantly relaxed and idiosyncratic style that is uniquely hers, evolved over years; an emphasis always on generosity and warmth; a preference for the luxury of simple, hand-crafted, often humble or overlooked things, transformed into captivating objects through care and creativity.
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into her world, and if so, please share it with your friends.
Photography credits:
Lead portrait of Charlotte - Max Miechowski for the FT
Ladder portrait - Alexander Collins for Vogue
All other images at Balmoral Cottage by Jonathan Lane Smith