Landscape Agency News

RHS Garden Hyde Hall – water champions!

2009-06-04T11:12:00.005+01:00

Being located in one of the driest areas of the UK, RHS Garden Hyde Hall, near Chelmsford in Essex champions water efficiency, and with this in mind the new car park conceals some interesting design features that make it more environmentally friendly than your average car park.

The clever design of the car park makes good use of the undulating landscape by incorporating swales and terracing thus maximising the recycling of surface rain water as well as providing an aesthetically pleasing landscaped area.

Swales (water drainage ditches) which eliminate the need for extensive underground drainage systems, provide a low-cost, low-maintenance way of harvesting rain water. They also encourage slow water run off which aids the removal of pollutants and allows more water to be retained by the surrounding soil and plants. Similar swales will also run alongside the new approach road to the garden to replicate a traditional English landscape with swathes of grasses and far-reaching views.

The new approach road and car park also makes good use of materials by using recycled concrete aggregate from crushed construction or demolition debris which is ideal as a base layer for roads. Tarmac has only been used where essential. The car park will accommodate 400 cars and five coaches, with provision for future expansion.

Alongside the car park, the new garden entrance building also incorporates a number of water and energy efficient features such as rain water harvesting a ground source heat pump to warm the building.

Harvested water from both the swales and the building will be discharged to the garden’s 45-million litre (10 million gallon) reservoir. The reservoir was built with the financial assistance of Essex & Suffolk Water to provide the garden with all its irrigation needs and reduce the garden’s reliance on mains supply in an area with low rainfall.

The whole area will be complemented by planting of trees such as Alnus, Acer, Carpinus, Sorbus and Pyrus chanticleer to add interest, height and structure.

Development of the new approach road, car park and garden entrance building is part of the Society’s long term master planning which has been overseen by consultants ‘The Landscape Agency’. The Landscape Agency has developed a holistic approach to large scale changes to this remarkable Essex garden in a way that will enhance the visitor experience and make the most of Hyde Hall’s 360-acre estate.

Through its gardens, the RHS has the opportunity to inspire and inform visitors about the development of sustainable gardening, and highlight the challenges that face gardeners in a rapidly changing environment.

written by David Alexander, Director RHS Estates

Press Coverage 2009

2009-03-25T09:39:00.002Z

Click here to read 'Vista' feature on The Landscape Agency's plans for RHS: Harlow Carr Learning Centre published March 2009.

March 2009 Update

2009-03-10T10:21:00.006Z

We have just re-launched our new website, setting out the various sectors we cover. In future we will summarise news from the teams working on each of the sectors:

Heritage and Leisure
Work continues with the Royal Horticultural Society at Harlow Carr in Harrogate and Hyde Hall, Essex. At Harlow Carr, we are in the closing stages of preparing our designs for the setting to a new Learning Centre, set for construction during 2009/10. The building and its setting are on course to achieve the highest BREEAM rating ever recorded in the UK.

We continue to advise the Grosvenor Estate in connection with its portfolio of garden squares in London’s Belgravia including Chester Square, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square reviewing the current condition of the gardens, assessing recent projects, and discussing ongoing maintenance against the plans in order to work up an updated series of proposals and idea, as well as provide a fresh perspective.

We have just learned that we have been commissioned by EcoArc architects to design the landscape around a proposed new visitor centre at Abberton Reservoir, Essex. An extremely exciting commission for the practice.

We have been working closely with Cheltenham Borough Council since December 2006, when we were initially commissioned to prepare a Conservation Management Plan and Masterplan for a HLF Parks for People bid to restore and develop Pittville Park, a Grade II listed urban park in the heart of this historic and fashionable spa town. In anticipation of a HLF Stage 1 Pass, we are now tendering for the appointment of a lead consultant to deliver and supervise works involved in a Stage 2 application up to RIBA Stage E.

We continue our work in preparing Conservation Management Plans for the National Trust at Hatchlands (Surrey) and Nymans Garden (East Sussex).

At Barham Park, London Borough of Brent we have prepared a Masterplan for this popular and well-maintained park close to the new Wembley Stadium which has retained much of its Victorian character. We have now been commissioned to assist in the preparation and submission of an HLF application.

Royal Parks - Older People's Play Working for the Royal Parks, for whom we have undertaken several other projects under a four-year framework agreement, we have now been commissioned to conduct a feasibility study into the creation of a play area for 'older people'; ‘older’ being defined in this context as anyone over the age of 50!

Closer to home we are delighted to have been recommended to the Churches Conservation Trust to work up a Management Plan for the magnificent Grade 1 listed Christ the Consoler church, set within the grounds of Newby Hall, near Ripon. The Trust cares for 340 churches of historic importance throughout England which have become redundant but merit preservation. The churchyard of Christ the Consoler appears to have been to a planned design with weeping beech trees set originally at each corner of the churchyard. The Trust is commissioning a survey and report to ensure that the churchyard and its planting is preserved for future generations.

Estates and Gardens
Newcastle-based architects, Reid Jubb Brown, have commissioned the practice to masterplan the landscape around a visually striking new country house designed by Reid Jubb Brown on a private estate near Rothbury, Northumberland.

Planning permission is currently being sought from Alnwick District Council under planning clause PPS7, which permits new design in rural areas as long as it is of exceptional and innovative design. Patrick James of the Landscape Agency is well-placed to oversee this commission as he acted as Expert Witness three years ago at a landmark Public Inquiry, successfully arguing in favour of a new country house at Lowther Park near Penrith, and just within the Lake District National Park. The Landscape Agency’s brief is to present a landscape strategy for the wider historic estate, a Masterplan to convey the setting of the house within the landscape and demonstrate how the proposed new building would enhance the existing landscape.

Please Click Here to see a local newspaper feature about this project.

Environmental Planning
Our team of qualified ecologists are increasingly being asked to carry out ecological surveys to assist developers in attaining highest possible BREEAM ratings for their developments. BREEAM is a voluntary code for measuring the ‘green-ness’ of construction projects, taking into account a wide range of factors such as energy, materials, landscape planting and ecological habitat. There are various BREEAM systems covering different categories of buildings such as schools, offices, sustainable homes and residential sites. We have recently been commissioned to carry out such an ecological assessment for a residential development on Hagley Road, Edgbaston on behalf of Shaylor Developments.

Elsewhere, we are undertaking an assessment of gorse along the highway corridor of the M2 in Kent with the aim of identifying fire control management requirements.

Tree and Woodland
Work continues on major woodland operations on projects at the Nyn Park estate in Hertfordshire, Melbourne Hall, and the Wootton Estate, both in Derbyshire.

Graphic and Web Design
Since completion of the company’s glossy new brochure and fully interactive e-Christmas card late last year, the Design team have been working on a complete re-design of the existing website which went live in early March.

I look forward to updating you on our projects later this spring.

Patrick James
Managing Director

December 2008 Update

2008-12-09T11:30:00.003Z

Christmas is no longer the mere blip on the horizon it once was, but before we tuck into our turkey and pull our crackers, we have a few projects to complete!

Our new brochure, designed inhouse by Mike Bolingbroke, our brilliant graphics designer, had been some weeks in design and production, but finally hit the mailbags in October, I think we gave the postman here on Clifton Moor a nervous breakdown and a bad back with our bulging mailbags but we still have a few left – if you would like to receive one, do get in touch at enquiries@landscapeagency.co.uk

Our marketing efforts have resulted in a good range of new enquiries, both from previous clients and brand new ones, which is excellent news for us all in the current economic climate.

Work continues this month for the Royal Horticultural Society at Hyde Hall, Essex where we have designed the setting for a new visitor arrival facility. A major new building, with exhibition space, ticketing, retail, catering, offices and outdoor gathering spaces is approached along a new access road sensitively laid over the rolling landscape of the wider estate. A new 400-space car-park has been designed with an entirely sustainable drainage system of open bioswales, taking surface water to a reservoir and ultimately to the garden irrigation system. Minimal visual impact, the responsible collection of water, the deployment of low-impact materials and processes and the preservation of the rural Essex vernacular have driven this successful project, set for completion in August 2009.

We are extremely excited about being shortlisted alongside Richard Griffiths Architects to re-design the Stonehenge visitor experience on behalf of a Project Implementation Group led by English Heritage. Our brief is to deliver improvements for the Stonehenge World Heritage Site to be delivered in time for the London Olympics in 2012. Specific objectives are to deliver:

An improved landscape setting for Stonehenge. The A344 adjacent to the Stones, and possibly the current facilities, will be removed and returned to chalk downland, reuniting the monument with its Avenue.
A new, sensitively designed and environmentally sustainable Stonehenge visitor centre.
Better interpretation of the Stones and the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

From Wiltshire to, well the other side of Europe…. A most unusual enquiry took two of the team, Kirsty Stevens and Stuart Postlethwaite, to one of the least known countries in Europe – Albania. We have been asked to look at an historical site, including amphitheatre, baptistery and acropolis at Butrint, in the south of the country, the site of an important Roman city and, since 1992, a World Heritage Site.

Kirsty and Stuart had an amazing insight into this fascinating country that was completely closed for almost 50 years under the communist rule of Enver Hoxha, and even now is little visited except by the most intrepid of travellers. We will now prepare initial sketch ideas for the visitor arrival at this UNESCO site, all the more interesting and challenging a project as the country has an almost entirely undeveloped tourism infrastructure. Follow the link to read more about this fascinating site. www.butrint.org/index.php

Sticking with the world heritage site theme, the National Trust has invited us to submit a tender for preparing a Conservation Management Plan for Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal. The 18th century landscape garden and abbey ruins are internationally important for their historical, archaeological, architectural and natural interest, while the combination of so many historic features representative of different periods is exceptional. The water garden at Studley Royal, laid out by John Aislabie in the 18th century, is one of the very few formal landscapes to survive substantially in its original design.

Of particular interest to the Landscape Agency is the connection between Studley Royal and nearby Hackfall, which was designed by John Aislabie’s son, William, as a picturesque garden, in complete contrast with the formality of Studley Royal. Eagle-eyed blog readers will recall that last month, the practice won the inaugural RIBA/Landscape Institute White Rose Landscape Award for our £1m Heritage Lottery Funded restoration works at Hackfall , completed earlier this year. We are currently preparing our approach for Fountains Abbey/Studley Royal and will hear next month whether our tender has been shortlisted.

The National Trust has also invited us to prepare fee quotations for conservation work at Tyntesfield, North Somerset and Sheffield Park, East Sussex.

Recently saved for the nation with a grant of £17m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and over £8m in public donations, Tyntesfield is a spectacular Grade 1 listed Victorian country house set within an estate comprising a series of broad terraces overlooking a wide valley. It has a remarkably intact mid-Victorian pleasure ground including a secluded arboretum known as 'Paradise', planted with well chosen specimen trees. The garden and park are registered Grade 2*. Conservation work on the house and estate buildings is being funded by the 2006-2012 Heritage Lottery Fund project.

Sheffield Park Garden is situated on the Weald midway between East Grinstead and Lewes, and is a beautiful 120 acre woodland garden originally designed for the first Earl of Sheffield by Humphry Repton and Capability Brown. It was the site of the first England v Australia cricket match in 1884, Lord Sheffield's team of the day including W G Grace. In 1910 Arthur Gilstrap Soames transformed the garden with clumps of lakeside rhododendrons and also introduced spectacular autumn colour with Japanese maples, nyssas and beds of autumn gentians. We have been asked to prepare a Conservation Management Plan, to enable the estate to subsequently enter into a Higher Level Stewardship agreement to assist with the funding of the parkland and woodland restoration.

Elsewhere in Yorkshire, an intriguing project takes us to Wentworth Woodhouse.
The Grade I Listed Wentworth House is one of the finest historic houses in Britain, being set within an exceptionally important historic environment with a designed landscape associated with Humphry Repton. It is also the largest stately home in Britain with a room for every day of the year, over 1000 windows and five miles of underground passageways.

Beyond the parkland with its follies, temples, striking landscape features such as
the South Terrace and other monuments, is a wider semi-rural with a number of villages with historic links to the estate. The area forms an oasis of green within the post industrial conurbations of Sheffield, Rotherham and surrounding former mining villages making Wentworth Woodhouse an historic asset of national, if not international, importance.

In common with many large country estates, Wentworth Woodhouse has had a chequered history following World War II. The effects of industrial mining policy, the pressures caused by the use of the site as a Further Education College with associated inappropriate adaptation and new build, and the pressures of encroaching suburban development have all taken their toll.

The Landscape Agency was commissioned in association with the architects Purcell Miller Tritton to undertake a number of studies and assessments relating to Wentworth’s historical significance with the overall objective of producing a landscape masterplan to secure the estate’s long term sustainable future.

We have previously worked with the Landmark Trust advising on the landscapes surrounding some of its portfolio of buildings of unique historic interest; and have recently been asked to advise on one of its newest acquisitions – Cavendish Hall in Suffolk. Cavendish Hall is an elegant Regency house with a rustic lodge, walled garden, stable block, lawns and a small park. Our brief is to advise on practical matters such as car parking, seating areas, tree management and walks, as well as to re-design the gardens to reflect the spirit of the first quarter of the 19th century, based partly on evidence from historic OS maps. Once work is completed, Cavendish Hall will accommodate up to 10 ‘landmarkers’.

I think it just remains for us to extend greetings of the season to all our readers, and we look forward to being of service to you in 2009!

Patrick James

Press Coverage 2008

2008-11-18T12:21:00.005Z

Click here to read 'The Garden' feature on The Landscape Agency's masterplans for the RHS Gardens published November 2008.

Winners at 2008 RIBA White Rose Awards

2008-10-28T13:34:00.003Z

York-based landscape design and environmental planning practice The Landscape Agency has won the inaugural Landscape Award at the RIBA White Rose Awards 2008 for the practice’s restoration of the Grade I listed woodland garden of follies and vistas at Hackfall near Ripon, one of Yorkshire’s most important historic designed landscapes.

The Landscape Award is a new award category announced by the Landscape Institute earlier this year and forms part of the 22nd RIBA Yorkshire White Rose Awards. The award, presented in partnership between the Yorkshire branches of the Landscape Institute and RIBA, recognises excellence in the public realm and reflects the importance of public spaces in the architectural realm.

Patrick James, Managing Director; Jo Brehaut, Landscape Architect and Linda Lockett, Conservation Architect, collected the award at the RIBA Awards Dinner held at Leeds Victoria Hall on 24 October.

The completion in spring this year of works to restore the landscape at Hackfall to its original splendour is the culmination of almost six years’ work for the Landscape Agency and its team of landscape architects, landscape historians, hydrologists and ecologists, on behalf of its clients, the Hackfall Trust and Woodland Trust. The project was funded by a £1million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Patrick James was delighted to receive the Award on behalf of the practice and commented: “We are proud winners of this inaugural award. It is recognition of the hard work the team has put in over the past six years to reveal this extraordinary landscape to a wider public. Hackfall is well worth a visit.”

The RIBA judging panel’s comments about Hackfall were as follows:
“
Hackfall is one of Yorkshire’s most important historic designed landscapes. Conceived in the 18th Century by John Aislabie, for the next 200 years visitors including Turner and Wordsworth flocked to the area, yet it was almost lost forever due to a lack of maintenance from the 1930s onwards. Fortunately a small group of local historians had a vision to restore the gardens and appointed a team of professionals who clearly shared their passion for this landscape.

Having secured a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and in partnership with the Woodland Trust, the vision has now become a reality. Follies and grottoes have been saved, important vistas reopened and ponds and waterfalls restored whilst public access has once again been enabled.

The judges were impressed with the manner in which the landscape architects have interpreted the historic structure of the landscape and boldly felled trees where necessary to allow light back into the woodland. The bureaucratic challenges of restoring Hackfall in a landscape covered by every conceivable statutory designation should not be underestimated and the consenting procedures have been tackled admirably. The success of the project is in no small part due to the collaborative approach adopted between professionals and local volunteers and highlights the real benefits of community involvement.

Whilst the work done so far is just the beginning of a long journey for Hackfall, the established management plan will safeguard the future of Hackfall – a real benefit for the people of Yorkshire.”
Click here to view Certificate

Press Coverage 2008

2008-10-21T15:12:00.002+01:00

Click here to read Yorkshire Post feature on The Fall and Rise of Hackfall published 11 October 2008.

Press Coverage 2008

2008-10-21T15:00:00.003+01:00

Click here to read article on Tree Risks and Responsibilities by Associate Director, Brian Higginson, from Tree News Autumn 2008 edition.

October blog

2008-10-14T09:33:00.001+01:00

This autumn we have continued to look after the Royal Horticultural Society. Our design for a new car park including sustainable drainage system at Hyde Hall, Essex is now under construction - all part of our original masterplans completed earlier this year. The new eco-friendly Learning Centre at Harlow Carr, Harrogate, is gearing up to be the highest BREEAM rated building in the UK. The centre will have a sedum roof, a geothermal heating system and will be built from sustainable materials. It will provide teaching areas for children and adults, a library, advisory centre and teaching garden.

The November issue of the RHS magazine The Garden will feature a piece about the masterplanning project.

A common theme for projects recently has been the seaside (design competitions in Redcar and Bridlington), and now we’ve come further down the Yorkshire coast to Filey where we have been asked to design the large garden of North Cliff House, which was built on a fortune made from the cotton trade.

Work continues in restoring the park and gardens at Nyn Park, Hertfordshire with the preparation of design proposals for the formal and informal garden areas and continued tree works including clearance of 40 acres of conifer plantations and enhancement proposals in relation to the various habitats on the site, in particular Well Wood SSSI.

Elsewhere, soft landscape proposals have been prepared for a planning application for a data centre in Wiltshire, and at Sonning Golf Club, Reading, we are going ahead with woodland management and new planting works to improve the woodland both from a silvicultural and a golfing perspective. The first phase of work will take place between November 2008 and March 2009.

With a few of our projects nearing completion, we have recently submitted schemes for Awards from the RIBA, Landscape Institute and the Georgian Group. Results will be known later this autumn and we hope to have some exciting news on this front shortly. One of our projects – the restoration of the Grade I listed woodland garden of follies and vistas at Hackfall near Ripon – has already been shortlisted by the RIBA/Landscape Institute White Rose Awards, and members of the team are attending an awards dinner at Leeds Hall later this month to hear whether we have been successful. Read more about Hackfall in the Yorkshire Post – see news blog to download pdf of a feature by Michael Hickling published on 11 October.

In-house, our Marketing and Graphics team have been busy putting the finishing touches to our new practice brochure which we will be posting out to everyone we know later this month!

Managing Director, Patrick James, will be one of the speakers at a conference to be held by Grosvenor Estates this month to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its Gardens Department. The conference will explore the common benefits and problems of managing London squares at a practical level, as well as touching upon the important strategic issues associated with maintaining predominantly 19th century urban landscape design. Patrick is an accomplished public speaker having previously addressed audiences from the Historic Houses Association, the Architectural Association and Sheffield University.

Finally, it may be October outside but our cheerful new surroundings keep the autumn doom at bay! At our head office in York we have painted our walls a brilliant white and re-arranged the office environment to create a studio feel with open-plan meeting area and open book shelves to maximise light and airiness.

We take sustainability very seriously and recently held a staff meeting to explore ways in which the company and individuals could work to agreed sustainability targets. More on this later.

That’s all our news for now but we will be back in touch next month.

Patrick James

Landscape Agency, News Update July 2008

2008-08-06T09:38:00.002+01:00

Here we are at the Landscape Agency in the middle of a heatwave in July, still busy as ever, although we might be persuaded to down tools for a few moments if anyone would care to treat our hard-working team to an ice cream!

Whilst mopping our brows and dreaming of a cool breeze, we have won several interesting new commissions recently, the most notable being:

Bridlington Spa Environs Design Competition. We were approached along with other members of the Yorkshire Forward Design Framework to put together an initial proposal for a design competition to refurbish the Spa Leisure Complex and South Promenade area of the town in order to create an exciting, inspirational and high quality seafront. Along with three other practices, we have now been shortlisted to work up conceptual design proposals to present to a jury panel from East Riding of Yorkshire Council in early August.

Wyevale Nurseries. We have been commissioned by LXB Properties to assist them in re-developing the site and facilities at Wyevale Garden Centre in Worcester. As part of this commission, we will review the landscape character of the site, undertake tree and ecological surveys, and review public rights of way, subsequently working up a new masterplan for the site. Originating as a local nursery in the 1930s when plants were sold bare-root by mail order only during the dormant season, Wyevale now has over 100 garden centres around the UK and the company prides itself on offering a large selection of gardening products and over 28,000 varieties of trees, shrubs and bedding plants annually.

We continue to work on several projects relating to parks and open spaces in London, such as the re-design of Primrose Hill on behalf of the Royal Parks, the restoration of Strawberry Hill gardens in Twickenham and implementation of a children’s play strategy for Regent’s Park. We have now been approached by Brent Council to prepare a landscape masterplan for Barham Park with the aim of submitting our proposals for consideration under the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Parks for People scheme in the autumn. Barham Park is a popular and well-maintained park, not far from the new Wembley Stadium, which has retained much of its Victorian character. The park is named after George Barham who as owner of the family estate, developed the park as ‘pleasure grounds’ during the 19th century, including a rose garden, walled and ornamental ponds. Barham was owner of the Express Dairy Company, inventor of the milk churn and the man responsible for developing methods of chilling that ensured that London’s milk supply was fresh and clean. It was Barham’s profits from his company that enabled the family to donate the park to the people of Wembley in the 1930s.

Our Warwick office has recently been instructed by Carter Jonas to undertake a Landscape and Visual Appraisal of land at Oakham, Rutland in order to assess its suitability for development and to prepare conceptual masterplans and land budgets in response to landscape and visual opportunities and constraints identified. This work will form part of the promotion of the site for development as part of the emerging Rutland Local Development Framework.

Elsewhere we have been approached to work with Sheppard Robson Architects to help landscape a series of new buildings at Hadlow College, Kent. Initial masterplanning and design will take place during the second half of the year. Hadlow College is one of the top three land-based colleges in the UK offering a range of courses in Equine Studies, Countryside Management and Agriculture over three campuses throughout Kent, of which Hadlow is the largest.

An interesting project for a private client sees us currently working with architects Purcell Miller Tritton at Nyn Park, Hertfordshire. Following a devastating fire on Good Friday, 1963, only a small archway now remains of the 18th century manor house which once stood at the centre of the estate. The park that surrounds the house was planted with conifers in the late 1960s by the estate’s then owner but very little has taken place in recent years which adds to the charm and mystery that surrounds it. Our client has now secured planning permission to build a new country house on the site of the former house and our brief is to masterplan the estate, completely restore the park and create a new garden. The first phase of works will start in autumn 2008 with a programme of conifer removal. Landscape Agency arboriculturists are overseeing extensive forestry, woodland and individual tree works.

Work continues this month for the Royal Horticultural Society at Hyde Hall where we are part of a team implementing a new access road and 400 space car park. The latter is drained via a system of bioswales, feeding run-off into an existing reservoir, for eventual use in irrigating the gardens.

Our Tree & Woodland Division has recently produced a leaflet outlining our arboricultural services. If you would like one, do please contact us on enquiries@ and we’ll be happy to post one out to you.

In other news, we are delighted to announce the appointment to our Board of Directors of Alistair Baldwin, who took up his new position of Design Director at the beginning of the month. Alistair joined the practice in May 2007 having spent ten years lecturing in Landscape Architecture and Garden Design at Leeds Metropolitan University. Alistair will now be focusing on leading our design and masterplanning team and winning new business.

Two of our Landscape Assistants, Jane Winter and Stuart Postlethwaite, have both recently passed their Post Graduate Diplomas in Landscape Architecture with Distinction – a great achievement and a reflection of the huge effort they have both put into their studies over the past couple of years. Very well done, both of you!

We were quietly pleased to come 21st out of 36 local firms who took part in the annual York Dragon Boat Race on 13th July. Team captain, Jo Brehaut, who spends a lot of her free time in boats, somehow persuaded her colleagues to not only give up their Sunday lie-in, but agree to wear a fetching green and brown outfit, topped by a green wig, and to row for all they were worth in several qualifying heats of 200m down the river. Not only was the event lots of fun and a great spectacle to watch, but the team raised an impressive £800 in sponsorship to be split between Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Amazingly, nobody fell in and Jo even arranged for the sun to shine. Thanks for making us do it, Jo!

After all that, perhaps we do need a rest after all. Have a great summer holiday everyone and we look forward to updating you further in the autumn.

Landscape Agency, News Update June 2008

2008-06-12T10:48:00.010+01:00

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

Landscape Agency project shortlisted for RIBA White Rose Awards

2008-06-02T12:32:00.007+01:00

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.

Great Dixter wins major Heritage Lottery Fund Award

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We are very pleased to announce that one of our recent clients - the Great Dixter Charitable Trust - has just been awarded a £4 million lottery grant towards a total project costing £7 million.

Great Dixter, situated just inland from the south coast in East Sussex, is celebrated not only for its garden craftsmanship and artistry, but also for the timber-framed house and small estate which are of great architectural and historic importance and beauty. Along with Hidcote and Sissinghurst, the English flower garden style of Great Dixter is of enormous influence both here and abroad.

During 2007 we prepared a Conservation Management Plan for the gardens and estate, working closely with Donald Insall Associates on behalf of our client, the Great Dixter Charitable Trust, formed to ensure future preservation of the property. Our plan involved looking at the entire 57-acre estate as well as the world-famous 6-acre gardens where Christopher Lloyd worked with his head gardener, Fergus Garrett, to plant the most ‘generous garden imaginable’.

Nathaniel Lloyd and Edwin Lutyens began the garden at Great Dixter but it was Nathaniel’s son, Christopher Lloyd, a well-known garden writer and television personality, who made it famous. The garden is in the arts and crafts style and features topiary, an immense mixed border, an orchard and a wild flower meadow. The planting is profuse, yet structured and has featured many bold experiments of form, colour and combination.

The house and garden are regularly opened to the public and study tours are available. Our proposals included ideas for improving visitor experience and increasing training and education opportunities across the estate and formed the basis of a submission to the Heritage Lottery Fund to preserve the house, its collections of antiques and the gardens which remain an inspiring model for gardeners, garden designers and garden writers everywhere.

The Trust is now preparing a further fully developed application to secure the grant and raise funds for the remaining monies needed.

Patrick James

1 April 2008

March 2008 Blog

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Welcome to the Landscape Agency’s first ever blog, co-inciding with the launch of our fully revamped and revised website. We hope you like what you see, please let us know what you think at enquiries@landscapeagency.co.uk.

It has been a busy start to the year here at the Landscape Agency.

First drafts of our masterplans for the four Royal Horticultural Society gardens (Harlow Carr, North Yorkshire; Hyde Hall, Essex; Rosemoor, Devon; and Wisley, Surrey) were presented to the client before Christmas and we have now completed a further period of consultation with Gardens Advisors and staff at all four gardens.

We continue to be involved at Gunton Park, Norfolk, where restoration works entered a new phase last month with a survey of veteran trees and exploring ideas for new woodland planting. We are currently investigating a suitable site for a possible new folly within the parkland. Last year Gunton Park won Country Life/Savills ‘Genius of the Place’ Awards for its sympathetic restoration led by Kit Martin (architect) and Ivor Braka (landowner) who were instrumental in transforming what was degraded parkland to a truly impressive setting for the main house and other listed park buildings.

A Herculean effort was made just before Christmas to assemble various reports and plans required for a planning application for proposed re-development of Hartham Park, Corsham, Wiltshire. A new office suite is proposed within the setting of the listed mansion house and Harold Peto walled gardens. Commissioned reports included a Landscape Masterplan for the 50-acre park, a Landscape and Visual Appraisal to inform the proposals, and 3d Photomontages of the projected office buildings and landscape scheme.

Cramlington in Northumberland could be the home for Charles Jencks’ controversial landform sculpture, Northumberlandia, a 500m long earth goddess up to 30m high. Jencks’ goddess, constructed from waste earth created by the extension of Shotton opencast coalmine situated between Cramlington and the nearby A1, was recently approved following a lengthy public inquiry. The Landscape Agency has acted as landscape advisor to The Banks Group, the coalmine’s owners, and the Blagdon Estate, the landowner, for the past five years, and continues to be closely involved with developments.

Work was completed last month on the first draft of a Conservation Management Plan for a private client at the richly historic Ballynatray Estate, Co Cork, Ireland, one of the most fascinating estates we have ever advised on. The estate comprises a host of important historical features within its boundary and is within land designated a Natural Heritage Area and a Special Area of Conservation. Our report considers grant opportunities and a prioritised 10 year work programme.

New commissions this quarter include:

The University of York – appointed to continue our ongoing work in connection with the creation of a new campus at Heslington East over the next ten years. Last year we developed initial masterplan ideas and a Landscape Design Guide to inform future design decisions. This new phase will concentrate on fleshing out our initial sketches for the Central Vista, a very exciting new public space for the University and the City of York.

Primrose Hill Summit, Royal Parks, London – as one of three landscape architect practices currently retained by the Royal Parks, our latest commission is to re-design the summit of this iconic hill. Presenting one of the finest views of the London skyline, this site will require a heightened sensitivity and a clarity of line and form.

Raven Audley Court plc are a new client who have commissioned us to work on two projects in the North and Midlands. Tunstall Court, Hartlepool will be serviced from our York office and Binswood Hall, Leamington Spa from our Warwick office. Raven Audley Court are, in their own words, “a specialist provider and manager of luxury retirement projects across the UK”. The company provides high quality retirement communities within which residents own their own property and pay a management charge to enjoy the benefits of communal social and health facilities, including use of the grounds and vegetable gardens.

Our work at Tunstall Court centres around the renovation of a large 19th century house, now derelict, set within a largely wooded landscape. The proposed development will provide carefully sited sheltered apartments for around 120 residents and will completely refurbish the existing hall and gardens, with the surrounding landscape designed with woodland walks and a formal garden on the site of the former bowling green.

Binswood Hall is a Grade II* listed building sited within a Conservation Area to the north of Leamington town centre. The site was originally a school, and includes a Great Hall and Chapel. Proposals will need to be sympathetic to the setting, enhancing the historic character of the site, whilst allowing for the needs of the resident community. This involves taking into account the access and mobility needs of residents, as well as providing planting that offers a variety of sensory experiences.

Elsewhere, we are continuing work on the launch of our new Graphics Division and the growth of our Arboriculture section – watch this space!

We are also looking to recruit over the next few months Landscape Architects who have completed their Pathway Landscape Chartership to join our happy teams in York, London and Warwickshire – even if we haven’t advertised a specific vacancy, we are always happy to look at CVs from exceptional individuals. Please email to recruitment@landscapeagency.co.uk .

We hope that you enjoyed reading this blog! We will update our news every month to keep you fully up to date with what’s happening at The Landscape Agency.

Patrick James
Managing Director

New Website

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New Website. (test post)