A modern Arts & Crafts garden in the Chiltern Hills
Games of hide-and-seek were not specifically a requirement in the brief for this garden on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, but space for family fun most certainly was. The owners of the handsome Arts and Crafts former rectory have two children and like to entertain, so a large, level lawn, a dining area and vegetable beds were all top of their list when they commissioned Gavin McWilliam and his long-term collaborator Andrew Wilson back in 2016. At the time, much of the 3,500-square metre space was taken up with shrubberies and sloping lawns (there is a six-metre change of level across the site). ‘The property had been added to over the years and the garden had developed haphazardly,’ says Gavin. ‘As a result, it was disjointed, with no real link between the house and the pool house, for example, and no sense of flow.’
To address this, Gavin and Andrew have imposed a striking new geometry upon the site, terracing the garden with a series of steps and retaining walls that run north to south, and building crisp, contemporary drystone walls east to west. These provide a dual function: acting as structural ribs to define the spaces and, through both their screening qualities and their Corten-lined apertures, adding a sense of surprise and intrigue that the duo felt fitting. ‘The house has a lot of doors – you can go in one and appear somewhere else entirely,’ says Gavin. ‘We wanted to bring that sense of playfulness to the garden.’
It would have been easier perhaps to realise this concept through the use of traditional hedge-bound garden rooms – a defining feature of the Arts and Crafts garden. But Gavin and Andrew’s treatment has moved the concept on, resulting in spaces that feel private without being completely enclosed. While it includes large, open areas, the design manages to conceal not only the clients’ prerequisites, but also a nuttery, a wild garden, a sculpture terrace and a children’s play area. And throughout, beautiful walks and deep borders brim with interest.
The planting plays a role in the trompe l’oeil, too. In the parking court at the front, a double row of pleached hornbeams shields most of the garden from view, save for a gap where, in late summer and early autumn, a wall of plants, including the dusky tones of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Grosse Fontäne’, Hydrangea paniculata ‘Phantom’ and mauve Vernonia arkansana ‘Mammuth’, leads the eye up and into the trees beyond. Ascending the limestone steps (a nod to the area’s chalky bedrock) to the main lawn, it becomes clear these trees are in fact in a neighbouring garden and one of several borrowed views.
The lawn is the heart of the new garden and the point around which all other spaces flow. At one end, a sculpture terrace provides a focus for views from the house, while artfully distracting from the trampoline beyond. At the other, the path branches, leading up to the pool house, vegetable beds and hazel coppice in one direction, and to a generous dining terrace off the kitchen in the other. Here, the enfilade of drystone walls, some of them set in cascade-fed pools, provides a tantalising vista that just begs to be explored. Those who do will discover a line of multi-stemmed Malus ‘Winter Gold’, which Gavin chose for their clouds of white blossom in spring and amber fruits in autumn, underplanting them with Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ and Deschampsia cespitosa for maximum effect.
From the pool house level, a gravelled path leads round the perimeter of the lawn, through the sculpture terrace and to the lower garden with its copper-clad swing seat. At times, it feels enclosed, cloistered by the hornbeams and tall, vertical grasses such as Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ and Miscanthus x giganteus. But, from its elevated position, this path also offers breathtaking views of the house and of the landscape beyond, which appears and disappears through the breaks in the walls and the planting. Now you see it, now you don’t… Who could resist a game of hide-and-seek in a garden like this?
McWilliam Studio: mcwilliamstudio.com
