Diarmuid Gavin’s Garden Designs magazine, September 2008

Posted by Amanda on Jan 12, 2011 in | 0 comments

“Neo-Palladian house, Hertfordshire

The owers said:’Whatever you do, be bold’, and they were absolutely right.

A neo-Palladian house sits with classical elegance within a mature wooded and rural Hertfordshire landscape unknown to many of us more familiar with the intersections of busy motorways. Today, the requirements for house and grounds are combined into being a family home and working estate run on agro-environmental lines.

Taking my lead from the architecture of the house, I reinstated the symmetry and strong axial lines reaching out into the landscape and once again balanced the power of the house with the power of the landscape. I envisaged the house footprint as it once was and created hedged enclosures to provide a sense of inward- and outward-looking experiences.

For the formal aspects of the garden, black and white photographs taken by Michael Kenna of Le Notre’s work were hugely inspiring. The photos were taken at dusk or dawn in winter when the skeleton of the garden is revealed and mists weave amongst the trees like familiar spirits. For modern elements, the work of designers like Martha Schwartz, Diarmuid Gavin and Anthony Paul showed me that anything is possible.

The main view of the garden is from the library terrace towards some Tudor ruins. I enhanced this by re-shaping woodland and cut a channel into the tree canopy to allow a shaft of light to play on the grassy path.

In the Wild Garden, I explored the notion that ‘wildness’ breaks boundaries and created fantastical topiary rising up and spiralling above the enclosure. It is home to ‘found objects’ including Roman sculptures and artifacts set amongst a collection of scented Syringa.

Weathered oak gates create a series of transitional spaces form the Wild Garden to a new twist on a Roman temple.  The temple is made from Perspex – an allusion to the Roman history of the site – set on a raised mound to look beyond the garden boundaries and at the end of a 30m walk through a double border of soft fruit and flowers.

One element of my brief was to enlarge the well-used swimming pool.  Taking into account the owners’ interest in nature and conservation, I designed a natural swimming pool and adjacent regeneration pool to combine the delight of swimming in a setting of water lilies and cleansing reeds as a double benefit for wildlife and people.

In a neighbouring enclosure and towering four metres high above the hedges, a mobile scultpure catches the wind and incorporates the air and sky as an integral part of the garden.  Continuing the walk along a wooden bridge over a pool into the Mirror Garden, reflections of flowers and colours surround you, a reference to mirrors used in the past to amuse Tudor guests.

We exist concurrently with the past and working with layers of history within a site is very important to me.  I want to acknowledge the genuis loci and add a complementary layer representing the early 21st century to enable people to feel history around them and experience our ongoing contribution. “