The challenge in this project, was to find a language that would keep the heterogeneous program items together in one design. It is conceived as variations on two themes, being the circle and the wavy line. Themes as various as cascade, labyrinth, spiral, poisonous plants garden, rose garden, garden of the senses, or serpent garden, all are composed as variation on both themes.
The cascade is a curvilinear vessel which is placed on the existing 12% slope. The forced perspectives of its narrowing shape towards the top is echoed by wavy hornbeam arbours with windows they forcefully frame the cascade. On both outsides, dramatic existing berms are planted with clipped beech and house a hidden world with rills and pools. The role of the arbour as dividing feature between the “finer” centre and the “rougher” woodland park is continued on the old wall that runs east-west.
Against this central east-west wall, the visitor can descend to the Poisonous Plants Garden or discover a series of stainless steel water sculptures by William Pye. In the Serpent Garden they are all laid out as circular features off the concave twists of the central serpentine hedge.
To the north-west of the garden, the presence of the high brick wall is exploited to create a Rose Garden. The visitor can explore it from a wavy wrought iron pergola or in the open air. At the end they merge around an old historic fox sculpture in a circular space. To the east of the Rose Garden, a labyrinth of bamboo on raised beds confuses the visitor by its twisting pattern in the dark under the arching bamboo grove.
All these gardens click into each other as a compact engine of great density, in contrast with the openness of the central lawn and cascade, to which the visitor always can return. Those that walk up the cascade are rewarded in the top garden, by a geometric but very lushly planted flower garden. It features as a jewel box on itself within the large garden. It is the highest point in the garden and feels like the origin of all water features.