Reshaping THE PAST

In the early years of the 20th century the Arts & Crafts architect Robert Weir Schultz bought a farmhouse and its 16th-century barns at Hartley Wintney in Hampshire and carried out one of the earliest recorded barn conversions to make himself a home. He set it in a garden laid out as an extension of the house with ‘rooms’ leading through it and with topiary as an important structural element. A century – and only two owners later – the topiary at Weirs Barn continues to form the backbone of the garden and wears its age exceedingly well.

Topiary has been around for a very long time.