The Landscape Agency has been shortlisted for this year's RIBA White Rose Awards for Design Excellence in the Landscape Award category for our works at Hackfall Woods, near Ripon, North Yorkshire.
The completion in Spring 2008 of a schedule of capital works to restore the Grade I listed woodland garden to its original splendour is the culmination of almost six years’ work for the Landscape Agency and our team of conservation architects, landscape historians, hydrologists and ecologists.
We were originally commissioned in 2002 on behalf of our clients the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust, to prepare a Conservation Management Plan funded by English Heritage with assistance from English Nature, Woodland Trust, Hackfall Trust, Landmark Trust, Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council.
Hackfall Woods lie six miles north west of Ripon and half a mile north east of Grewelthorpe. The woods comprise 80 hectares of semi-natural ancient woodland on the south and west sides of a steep-sided rocky gorge of the River Ure. In places the sides are precipitous and lined with crags – until recently largely invisible beneath a dense canopy of trees and shrubs. The river flows through the gorge in a series of sweeping bends lined with narrow beaches of sand or gravel.
Hackfall was a major tourist attraction in the late-18th and 19th centuries. Wordsworth wrote about it, Turner painted it and it featured alongside Ripon Cathedral, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal as a “must see” on the northern tourist circuit. The woodland provided the perfect setting for Aislabie’s paths and vistas that lead to numerous romantic follies (recently restored), breathtaking water features and cascades throughout the wooded valley. One visitor in 1769 commented that, “Nothing can exceed the taste, variety and beauty of this landscape”.
However by the early years of the 20th century Hackfall lay forgotten and in 1932, the woods were sold to a local timber merchant and most of the mature trees felled. The woodland gradually re-grew and fortunately many ancient woodland species survived, but ponds, weirs, follies and paths had become badly damaged.
In 2003 the Landscape Agency assisted the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust in successfully applying for an HLF Project Planning Grant which funded more detailed assessments of hydrology, ecology, views and vistas, and footpath condition.
In March 2005, a stage 1 Heritage Lottery Grant Application by the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust was approved. This allowed a team of consultants to be appointed, with The Landscape Agency as lead consultant, to develop detailed design proposals to RIBA Stage E for the partial restoration of the garden’s buildings, footpaths, water features, views and the provision of a car park for the site, as well as submission of a Stage 2 HLF application.
In December 2006, the HLF Stage 2 bid was approved, and nearly £1 million was granted for the implementation of capital restoration works, development of people engagement plans and the preparation of the ten year Management and Maintenance Plan.
Almost 30 separate consents needed to be sought from a wide group of statutory bodies before any works could take place on site. The consultant team worked together to oversee the implementation of the works from April 2007 to April 2008 to partially restore key aspects of Aislabie’s designed landscape, facilitate public access and improve habitat quality.
We were originally commissioned in 2002 on behalf of our clients the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust, to prepare a Conservation Management Plan funded by English Heritage with assistance from English Nature, Woodland Trust, Hackfall Trust, Landmark Trust, Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council.
Hackfall Woods lie six miles north west of Ripon and half a mile north east of Grewelthorpe. The woods comprise 80 hectares of semi-natural ancient woodland on the south and west sides of a steep-sided rocky gorge of the River Ure. In places the sides are precipitous and lined with crags – until recently largely invisible beneath a dense canopy of trees and shrubs. The river flows through the gorge in a series of sweeping bends lined with narrow beaches of sand or gravel.
Hackfall was a major tourist attraction in the late-18th and 19th centuries. Wordsworth wrote about it, Turner painted it and it featured alongside Ripon Cathedral, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal as a “must see” on the northern tourist circuit. The woodland provided the perfect setting for Aislabie’s paths and vistas that lead to numerous romantic follies (recently restored), breathtaking water features and cascades throughout the wooded valley. One visitor in 1769 commented that, “Nothing can exceed the taste, variety and beauty of this landscape”.
However by the early years of the 20th century Hackfall lay forgotten and in 1932, the woods were sold to a local timber merchant and most of the mature trees felled. The woodland gradually re-grew and fortunately many ancient woodland species survived, but ponds, weirs, follies and paths had become badly damaged.
In 2003 the Landscape Agency assisted the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust in successfully applying for an HLF Project Planning Grant which funded more detailed assessments of hydrology, ecology, views and vistas, and footpath condition.
In March 2005, a stage 1 Heritage Lottery Grant Application by the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust was approved. This allowed a team of consultants to be appointed, with The Landscape Agency as lead consultant, to develop detailed design proposals to RIBA Stage E for the partial restoration of the garden’s buildings, footpaths, water features, views and the provision of a car park for the site, as well as submission of a Stage 2 HLF application.
In December 2006, the HLF Stage 2 bid was approved, and nearly £1 million was granted for the implementation of capital restoration works, development of people engagement plans and the preparation of the ten year Management and Maintenance Plan.
Almost 30 separate consents needed to be sought from a wide group of statutory bodies before any works could take place on site. The consultant team worked together to oversee the implementation of the works from April 2007 to April 2008 to partially restore key aspects of Aislabie’s designed landscape, facilitate public access and improve habitat quality.
