CREATING THE GARDEN
With the assistance of a local architect, we drew up the majority of plans for the garden ourselves, drawing inspiration for the main borders from gardens we particularly liked (Rousham in Oxfordshire and Upton Grey in Hampshire). The soft landscaping in the main garden was conceived by Alex Foster, a Hampshire-based landscape designer.
The topography and geology presented major challenges. The gardens were mainly laid to lawn and sloped from the woods at the top to the churchyard at the bottom. There were several extremely large (80ft+) beech and lime trees that shrouded significant areas of the garden in shade.
To preserve the view of the church from the house we designed the main garden and parterre as a series of terraces. This involved cutting and levelling the existing slopes and removing around 10,000 tons of chalk from the site.
The existing pool and tennis court were dilapidated and overgrown. We designed a trellis to replace the previous chain link fencing, which provides scent and colour, and made new beds surrounding the pool to create the feeling of a cottage garden.
We felled three large beech trees, a lime tree and two yews as well as an avenue of whitebeams that ran the length of the pool and tennis court to create more light. We cleared further shrubs and trees to open the space beyond the tennis court to create a croquet lawn and erected a pergola with a swing seat, designed to optimise the views over the garden and down the Till Valley to enjoy the evening sun.
We had to reduce the footprint of the existing orchard to create a garage, but retained several of the existing apple trees and supplemented them with new fruit trees. We also added a greenhouse, fruit cage, cutting bed and four large compost bays.
After the creation of the main borders and the installation of the retaining walls, we were left with the challenge of large areas of the garden which were on a slope. To avoid having to strim these slopes on a weekly basis, we planted pre-sown wildflower turf that would only need to be cut once a year.
As part of the renovation works to the house and terrace, we installed four 5,000 litre rain harvesting tanks beneath the terrace to help with watering and irrigation.
Our project in 2016 was the improvement of the driveway. We cleared the entire bank, overgrown with ivy, bindweed, ground elder and nettles and planted it with a variety of plants that tolerate shade and dry growing conditions, taking care not to disturb the winter aconite bulbs that form a carpet in the Spring.
The garden, which has evolved over the last 3 years is testament to what can be achieved almost from scratch.