I’ve not been told this but I suspect she didn’t suffer fools well,’ he says. ‘She was not naturally gregarious and did not participate in village life at Tarrant Monkton of drinks and dinner parties. She would though, if asked, gladly help out with cards to be sold for church funds, but generally she just got on with her work and saw the small circle of friends she knew from her days as a teacher.’

In 1965 she moved from Wareham to a thatched cottage at Tarrant Monkton, Dorset, where she remained for the rest of her life . Here she was able to install a much larger printing machine and produced three large format books about Dorset in 1968, 1969, and 1970, regarded as her finest works. These attracted the attention of the National Trust, who commissioned her to produce guide books to many of their properties in the West Country, and allowed her to finally become a full-time artist in her early forties. Rena Gardiner came to Dorset in 1954, taking a cottage in Wareham and travelling to her day job teaching art at Bournemouth School for Girls on a Lambretta. By then she had already illustrated and printed one book and was a consummate printmaker, inspired by the lithograph makers such as John Piper and Eric Ravilious that flourished between the wars. Setting up a makeshift workshop and studio in her garage she continued to make prints and before long was producing her first books, soon outgrowing her garage and precipitating her move to Tarrant Monkton in 1965.

The best of Dorset in words and pictures

Rena Gardiner’s utterly charming guidebook to Cotehele, first published by the National Trust in 1973, describes the ‘Prospect Tower’ as looking like a church tower from a distance whereas, she continues, it is ‘nothing more than a folly’. Nothing more than a folly??? This casual comment can be forgiven when one sees her distinctive and delightful illustrations – she was clearly a fan of the landmark. Gardiner’s text describes another alleged function of the tower: that it was used to signal between Cotehele and Maker church on the Mount Edgcumbe estate (which is feasible – the two towers have sight of each other). One of the earliest known views dates from 1814 when J.M.W. Turner included it in a sketch of Cotehele. Guidebooks throughout the 19th century refer to the tower (which doesn’t seem to have a name) and the ‘most extensive and finely varied view’ which could be obtained from the top. It is simply ‘tower’ on early Ordnance Survey maps, but is known today as the Prospect Tower. We’ll never know, but there are tantalising glimpses of Rena’s character throughout her work, such as in the enormous 10ft x 30ft mural made for Bournemouth School for Girls in 1960/61 to commemorate the original school buildings at the Lansdowne ahead of its move to a purpose-built campus close to Castle Lane. Lessons are captured in full swing, there’s an art class on the balcony, a school photograph being taken… and Rena includes herself astride her red scooter.

A guide book to Corfe Castle came out in 1963. A copy was seen by a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral who proposed she illustrate a new guidebook for that building. She printed 3000 copies of this in 1964, which in turn led to a similar commission for St Georges Chapel Windsor in 1966. Further self-published books on other cathedrals and churches followed. The mural for Bournemouth School for Girls contains many fascinating details: Rena’s motor scooter can be seen between the main buildings, and she herself is taking an art class on a balcony. The publication of Rena Gardiner: Artist and Printmaker, which includes an exhaustive list of her books, leaflets, cards and prints, has shone a light – albeit belatedly – on this most unsung of Dorset art figures and yet even now she remains something of an enigma. How pleasing. ◗Rena fitting a lithographic printing plate onto the press at home in Tarrant Monkton. Photo by Martin Andrews in 1993, used courtesy of Little Toller Books Originally hand-printed and bound for friends in an edition of just 30, Rena Gardiner’s ‘Portrait of Dorset’ has recently been reissued by Design For Today. It is rightly considered to be her masterpiece, writes Jon Woolcott. This is a quote from one of Rena Gardiner’s guidebooks on Dorset. Rena Gardiner had a unique and very distinctive style of illustrating. She was best known for her guidebooks and designed and crafted the whole process, by hand, from the initial sketches through to the completed book. Looking at them now her illustrations are very typical of the period, however the handmade, artisan approach to her work has recently experienced a resurgence. She bridged the gap between studio print and commercial production. With the publication of this celebration of Rena Gardiner’s work, we hope to draw attention to her considerable contribution to lithographic illustration whilst simultaneously shining a light on the broader aspects of her legacy as an artist – her paintings, pastels and linocut prints. None of this has been published before. Much of it was thought to have been lost after the sale of her estate and clearance of her studio following her death in 1999. Thankfully, during the research for this book a considerable body of her work was discovered in private hands and the archives of the National Trust at Cotehele in Cornwall. Its inclusion only serves to underline her achievement. However, perhaps her purest artistic expressions are to be found in the work she did entirely for her own reasons.

From the mid- 1950s through to the 1980s, Gardiner produced some of the most imaginative and lively lithographs and books. Initially her books were self-published, but then The National Trust commissioned her to produce guidebooks to some of their properties. This allowed her to become a full time illustrator and artist in later life. In the main her subject matter was topographical and she had an absorbing interest in architecture and, above all Dorset. All of which goes to show, if only by attaching prices to it, just how much her highly individual work is now being appreciated by those in the know, thanks in no small part to the success of the book.Cotehele was the first property to be accepted in lieu of death duties by the newly-created National Land Fund in 1947, and was passed to the National Trust. The tower is just one of the many attractions of the Cotehele estate. Rena Gardiner’s overview of Cotehele from the 1973 guidebook produced for the National Trust.