As spring rolls into summer (or at least that is what the calendar says), life at the Landscape Agency shows no signs of slowing down.
With offices based in York, London and Warwick we are able to undertake projects in any part of the country and our latest project takes us to Kent, to one of the country’s most well-known landscapes, Leeds Castle, where we have been approached to work on improving the visitor experience to this 12th century castle and grounds, home to royalty for over a thousand years. With an aviary, a maze, a golf course and a museum, the castle grounds are an important leisure destination.
We are currently preparing a new 10-year masterplan which will address ways of increasing visitor numbers (600,000 last year) as well as upgrading visitor facilities, car parking, circulation and enhancing a number of other aspects to the historic landscape.
Last month we heard that the practice has been shortlisted for this year's RIBA White Rose Awards for Design Excellence in the Landscape Award category for our sensitive restoration of William Aislabie’s picturesque woodland garden at Hackfall Woods, near Ripon, Yorkshire. We have been working at Hackfall since 2001 and it is particularly rewarding to have our efforts and those of our partners recognized – and to see the follies and features in this Grade 1 listed setting taking on a new life. For further reading about this fascinating site, please see the separate entry in our blog dated 2 June.
Elsewhere we have been approached by the National Trust to work with them at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, an extraordinary example of a great house preserved in its decline with its collection of curiosities all left in place when the property was acquired back in the 1980s. Our brief is to come up with a parkland tree planting plan as well as looking at the wider landscape of the park.
We have been working for some months now with Cheltenham Borough Council at Pittville Park, Cheltenham, assisting with the preparation of a major bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund/Big Lottery to restore the Grade II listed park and estate to its former glory.
Pittville Park was opened in 1825 and continues to be a popular green space in Cheltenham for families, cyclists and joggers. Current facilities at the park include a boating lake, skateboarding ramps, refreshment kiosk, adventure playground, tennis courts, bandstand and aviaries. We have been working on a number of proposals to update these facilities with the aim of attracting more visitors to the park; improving pedestrian access and entrances to the park; restoring the external appearance of the Pump Room and other heritage features of the park; and promoting opportunities for local community involvement.
Our work for the Royal Horticultural Society gardens continues this month. We are currently implementing part of our masterplan at Hyde Hall, Essex where we are assisting the RHS with looking at aspects of the masterplan in greater detail.
Back in Yorkshire, we are working with award-winning York-based architects Eco Arc on the landscape setting for a new-build eco house in a village setting close to Harrogate. The new dwelling is intended as an integrated eco system within the boundaries of the site: heating will be from a ground source heat pump; domestic hot water will be heated using solar thermal panels; and human waste will be biologically processed back to the natural landscape via a settlement tank, reed beds and a leach field.
At our Warwick office, we have recently undertaken a tree survey at the prestigious Sonning Golf Club near Reading whose tree-lined fairways are an attractive feature of its par 70 course.
Finally, people news…. We have recruited three new people to our ranks over the past few weeks. At our head office in York, we have made an exciting appointment to our Graphics team: Mike Bolingbroke, a talented graphics designer, who joins us from an advertising design company in Leeds, where he was head of design and multimedia. Being a very creative individual, Mike’s professional skills vary from graphic design and web design through to animation and photography. The addition of Mike to the team considerably strengthens our graphics capability, adding an extra dimension to the scope of services we currently provide to our clients.
We have two new faces at our Warwick office. Brian Higginson joins the team as Associate Director (Arboriculture) and Sarah Cotter Craig as Landscape Architect.
For the past 8 years, Brian was Head of Arboriculture at Warwickshire College where he lectured on a range of courses. Previous to this role, Brian gained extensive practical experience as a freelance consultant, an arboricultural contract manager for Glendale Countryside and a tree surgeon. Clearly trees are in Brian’s blood, as he is the fourth generation of his family to have chosen a career in arboriculture and forestry.
Sarah joins the practice from the RPS Group where she was employed as Landscape Manager, responsible for the landscape management of English Partnership land holdings in the Midlands and South West. Previously, Sarah was a Landscape Graduate at Waterman CPM where she undertook the design and implementation of planting schemes, production of management plans to support landscape design proposals, landscape and visual appraisals and preparation.
We are delighted to welcome Mike, Brian and Sarah to the team.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading our blog. Do email us with any comments at enquiries@landscapeagency.co.uk.
Patrick James
Managing Director
