Naturalised planting blends with the surrounding landscape and envelopes a modern timber clad building.
Originally a pig farm for nearly 30 years and then a farmyard garden, this half-acre plot surrounded by AONB countryside lay derelict for nearly 8 years. The existing tiny Victorian cottage was replaced with a modern timber-clad, low-energy family home. Local materials and a relationship with the surrounding rural landscape are a priority in the scheme. To break down and soften the tall linear volumes of the building, an orchard within a meadow is planted across the width of the plot. Other than the tiny lane, the village green and the front garden blend seamlessly together, as they once did a hundred years ago before the lane was built. The rear garden borrows the extended landscaping of the gently
elevated uncultivated field behind the plot and is planted with the same numerous types of wildflowers that seed and colonise this precious, untouched piece of land without any human intervention. Garden rooms closer to the house include a hot, dry gravel garden, a formal lawn surrounded by a pleached lime avenue, a boule court, and an ornamental kitchen garden bordered by open drystone low-level walling made of locally quarried forest marble. Pleached and espaliered fruit trees clothe the new barn and provide shelter for the kitchen garden. Multi-stemmed trees, evergreen grasses and self-seeding annuals contrast with classical yew hedging that encloses the different rooms within the garden. .
