MORE often than one might suppose, a garden begins with a chance encounter and so it with the two gardens created from scratch for this Cotswold home. Standing in the queue for entry to the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the garden designer Marcus Barnett bumped into a current client who happened to be with friends who were in urgent need of help following some major building projects.
"They had done a beautifully considered renovation on an annexed barn and had plans to develop a further smaller barn that had been situated a little way across from the main house, separated by an old farmyard, he recalls. The main house had also been substantially renovated with the same exquisite care. As well as making gardens for around the main house and outbuildings, the property needed a sympathetic eye cast over it and a master plan that would unite the various, hitherto disparate elements. Telephone numbers were exchanged and, the next day, the clients called to arrange a first meeting.
The bulk of the client's property consisted of seven acres with, at its heart, the original stone house, surrounded by a collection of traditional stone outbuildings, all of which had been given a contemporary finish inside. The home and gardens are separated by a quiet country lane, beyond which lies another small paddock field. There were views across an unspoilt valley of small woods, pasture, and agricultural fields.
The main house and its outbuildings described an almost complete square, creating within their walls a sheltered lawn with lovely vistas across the Cotswolds from the south-west corner. The diminutive barn house, barely 100 yards northwest of the main house, stood, somewhat isolated, on an area of lumpy uneven ground.
Denne historien er fra April 20, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prÞveperiode pÄ Magzter GOLD for Ä fÄ tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ?  Logg pÄ
Denne historien er fra April 20, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prÞveperiode pÄ Magzter GOLD for Ä fÄ tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg pÄ
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766â68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artistâs first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
