Little Sparta is the garden near Dunsyre in Lanarkshire, created by the poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay, and recently nominated by critics in Scotland as the most important contemporary art object in Scotland. Open to the public from June to September, it contains some 300 works of arts, mainly carved in stone, recalling the classical era, the 18th century, the French Revolution, ships and modern warfare. It is, according to the art historian Sir Roy Strong "the most original garden created in Britain since the war."