Our task here was to rescue the formal elegance of a badly neglected area.

Our clients had taken over a fairly large garden. Approximately one fifth of its area was given over to a paved area overlooking a large concrete pond. In its heyday, the garden must have provided a beautiful and relaxing retreat, but now weeds were forcing their way through the paving, and the perimeter fencing had long since disappeared, leaving only the row of brick columns to define the plot. The pond was badly overgrown and the stone water feature had long since given up the ghost. The whole site had become, over the years, a dumping ground for all manner of refuse, and was made gloomy by the presence of a row of unwanted conifers, which had become overgrown through neglect.

Both our clients and ourselves felt that it was desirable to keep the general ambience of the original garden, so we did not interfere with the main definitions of the site. However, we decided to dismantle the redundant water feature in favour of creating a new corner access to the site and enable an easy walk all around the existing pond. We transferred the head of water to the upper patio in order to break down the perception of there being a wet section and a dry section to the garden, opting for a large semi-circular pond fed by two stainless steel spray nozzles. The water drained from the header via a waterfall that fell into a brick built retainer filled with some of the original rocks removed from the water feature. We then conducted the water under the pathway back to the original pond.

We decided to elaborate and enhance the original perimeter of brick columns with trellis infill panels. We built up the height of existing columns and added more to suit our concept. We used trellis panels because we wanted to redefine the area without giving the feeling of cutting it off from its immediate surroundings. Further columns were added in order to provide support for a pergola, a structure initiated by two columns that grew directly from the structure of the water feature itself. The upper patio was paved with a mixture of the cobble stones which constituted about 50% of the original area and some rustic terra cotta tiles that combined to produce a suitably informal quality within a formal arrangement.