Contemporary Courtyard Garden Design Scheme For Barn Conversion, Walkington, Nr. Beverley, East Riding Of Yorkshire, UK.

Mulberry Lodge is recently converted range of late Victorian agricultural buildings in the village of Walkington, Nr. Beverley, East Yorkshire, UK. The dwelling is primarily single storey and sits in a large 7 acre landscaped plot. The inner courtyard is approximately 20m x 10m.The current owners bought the property three years ago and undertook a high end re-fit of the interior including the rooms that overlook the courtyard those being the games room, the sitting room, the kitchen, the swimming pool, the gym and the children’s play room.During the summer of 2010, a design and build company was contacted by the owner’s to provide a quotation to re-design the courtyard garden after they saw examples of my work on my website www.a-design-and-build.co.uk (found via. google).The existing courtyard (pictured above) was designed and landscaped when they first moved in and was little used by the family who had two small children under five.The formal layout (which is centred around the wrong axis in my opinion) left little usable space and the white travertine limestone paving was difficult to keep clean and was blinding in full sunlight. Also, the extensive plantings of box hedging suffered from box blight and were very labour intensive for the couple’s busy full-time gardener to maintain.Upon accepting my Design Fee Estimate and giving a design and build company the commission to design the courtyard, I was given the following unusual Design Brief:* Complete removal of the existing garden.* Use of darker paving, possibly true York Stone.* Child friendly water features.* Areas for lounging, outdoor cooking and dining.* A large synthetic lawn.* Stepping stones across the lawn.* A space to site a table tennis table.* All plants to be artificial if possible.* Lots of topiary balls etc.* Lots of Allium spp. Bulbs.* The inclusion of an outside Station Clock.* The inclusion of Storm Lanterns.* Outside lighting.

After extensive desk research (via. the internet) and personal visits to several material suppliers spread throughout the country, I returned to the customer two weeks later and presented the above Plan.The Client liked many of my ideas but suggested that the design wasn’t exactly what they wanted and gave me a list of omissions and additions that should satisfy their needs and wants if undertaken.

Yet again, two weeks later I returned with my revised Final Master Plans and this time the Client was delighted with my scheme which is described as follows:Broad Merbau Exterpark Plus hardwood decking steps from www.exteriordecking.co.uk, flanked with bespoke lead-clad tiered water cascades, lead down from the sitting room on to an extensive terrace surfaced with sawn natural York Stone paving from www.yorkstone-paving.com encased in a grid of sawn blue/black natural slate paving from www.nustone.co.uk . A large synthetic lawn fills the centre of the garden and abuts another large terrace of natural slate paving adjacent to the indoor swimming pool. A slightly elevated Merbau deck forms an informal ‘lounging’ area on the South-facing elevation of the property and is built around a 450mm high slate-walled, raised plinth which forms a coffee table/seating and houses a stainless steel ‘fire pit’. Merbau steps lead up to the Gym and to the left of these is located an imported ‘Aimish’ timber children’s playhouse. The majority of planting in the garden (including all box hedging, box balls, box spirals and bay trees) is artificial (www.evergreendirect.co.uk) , the mass plantings of Allium species bulbs are real. The courtyard is also decorated with hanging ‘grass balls’ from www.boulegazon.com and stainless steel Storm Lanterns. The whole courtyard garden is to be illuminated/highlighted at night with high quality Hunza mains powered luminaires from www.hunzaeurope.com and is to be constructed in the summer of 2010 by the Client’s full-time gardener and their joiner.

I would love to hear if anyone has had an experience of paving being pushed up because of the hot and dry weather this summer. We have had a number of patios where this has become a problem (a couple we laid ourselves and quite a few more where…

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Comments

Graeme @ BGS July 21, 2010 at 6:24pm

Very nice David! Well done.
Out of interest who is supplying / fitting the artificial lawn?
Jackson's Landscape Design July 21, 2010 at 7:25pm

spot on David