Wave power

A modern kitchen extension was the catalyst for a bold new flower garden

- Tiffany Daneff

SET back from Harston High Street in Cambridgeshire, the front of Park House appears very much the gaultbrick and stone Victorian Gothic Revival building designed in 1854 by George Edmund Street, who was most famous for creating the Royal Courts of Justice. Inside, the house has been refurbished to give a light and bright interior, but retains the original detailing, so it is only as you approach the sizeable garden at the back that the striking contemporary kitchen extension is revealed.

When the current owners, David and Sharon Smith, first saw the property in 2017, plans had already been commissioned for the extension and for a terrace overlooking a bold new flower garden below. As it was, they were happy to inherit both the local architectural practice, Cowper Griffith, and the garden designer, Robert Myers, whose task it was to marry the extension and the Victorian house with the garden, a modern pool house and the orchard beyond.

In its heyday, Park House had been surrounded by parkland, stabling and out- buildings, but, over the decades, these have been sold off for residential development. The remaining land that forms the garden today reaches all the way to the treeline, giving a lovely rural feel that holds true to its history of continuous arable farming recorded from Domesday until the 20th century.