The brief
The owners of this new build in the Cotswolds knew that once their home – an unusual modern house built into a hillside, much of it underground – was designed, they would ask Chris Beardshaw to design the garden. Initially, Chris was approached to create a cottage-style garden in the immediate area around the house (the size of which was set by planning conditions), incorporating some loose-style planting, a dining area and edibles. But the project then evolved to take in the wider 12-acre site.
Previously farmland and orchards, and in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the site was home to intact ridge and furrow (traces of the ancient ploughing system), two patches of neglected woodland, a stream, meadows and a long, straight, precipitous track to a derelict cottage and farm buildings. It soon became obvious that the garden would need to flow into the surrounding landscape. Chris ended up also dealing with the trees, hedgerows, meadows, the approach to the house, parking and boundaries, the farm buildings,
