The Old Rectory, North Yorkshire
About This Project
Yorkshire meets Provence in the garden of a former rectory.
The clients both work long hours. They asked us to create a garden which made them feel like they’d been transported on holiday at the end of their working day.
The existing site slopes from the property to a river, with no comfortable places for enjoying the natural beauty of the space. Primary access to the property is through a courtyard, with an awkward arrangement of materials and new walling.
The new design marries a formal Provencal layout – featuring terraces, a parterre, reworked courtyard, a dining ‘room’ under rooftop mulberries, and walkways punctuated by hedging and topiary – with a relaxed planting scheme typical of an English country garden.
We replaced hornbeam columns for cypress trees; silver willow-leaved pears for olives, and tumbling wild roses for oleander..
A swimming pool and loggia on the lower terrace look back to the house, or down the garden to an improved orchard and woodland path to the river.
Photographs by Kat Weatherill