Client:
Mrs W
Wivelrod
Nr Alton
Hampshire

Designer
Paul Bentley MSGD

Garden Condition:
This property is a grade II Listed building located on the highest point in Hampshire in a very quiet country village.
The area of garden in question was sloping from south to north and mainly laid to lawn with a few small shrub borders located within it. The soil conditions were a mixture of flint, chalk and clay.

Client Brief:
To provide a rose garden in an area that was hardly used within the main garden but to take into account the surrounding environment, features and period of the property.
Create an entrance through an existing mature beech hedge to bring the open space and rolling hills into the new area.
Respect the two parallel beech hedges and mature planting borders

Weather conditions and duration of works:
The contract began in early Dec 2007 and started out sunny, it then turned very cold and then extremely wet. The location of the garden being so high meant that we were open to the elements and all the weather conditions seemed to be very extreme. The project was located quite a fair distance from the rear entrance and moving all of the materials to the build site was hampered due to the weather conditions.
The contract was completed end of March 2008.

Suppliers:
Paving – Miles Stone Southampton
General Building materials – Wolseley Centers and Covers, Chichester also Dudmans for bulk aggregates and ready-mix concrete.
Waste disposal – Lift and Shift, Portsmouth
Plants – Supplied by the client.
Turf – Rolawn
Bricks – Reclaimed from Romsey Reclamation
Lighting – Hunza via Landscape Plus
Plant hire – Chichester Plant Hire

Final Outcome:
The hole was created in the mature beech hedge.
The main excavations took place in the dry and all of the spoil some 85tons were moved to another location within the property. The footings were excavated and then poured; at this point it turned very cold.
The walls went up in very heavy rain, for this scaffolding was erected so as work could continue under cover.
Flint panels were installed within the main rear walls and the steps installed.
The herringbone brick paths and circular terrace were installed and the planting beds excavated in preparation for the new soil.
All lighting was installed which was on a remote controlled system.
The soil was installed and the roses planted.
To finish the project turf was installed.

The project took 16 weeks to construct and the final cost was in excess of £50k

Client Letter (PDF)

More photographs of this project can be found here