LATE BLOOMER

Not for Pierre Lagrange the heady days of high summer. He wanted a garden that hits its peak just as the days shorten and the first frosts fall

- CAROLINE DONALD

AT HOME WITH…

Owners Pierre Lagrange and Ebs Burnough, who live here with their one-year-old daughter.

House A Grade-II Georgian redbrick farmhouse in West Berkshire with outbuildings and barns used for guest accommodation.

Garden Contemporary perennial and meadow planting in 12 acres, surrounded by woodland and fields. A small ferme ornée houses rare pigs and hens, and a couple of Airstreams sit in the long grass of an orchard.

Rusted Corten-steel planters in the north garden give a nod to the agricultural past of the buildings and reflect the scudding clouds

As one of Britain’s top financiers – not to mention owner of Huntsman, the stylish Savile Row tailor featured in the Kingsman films – Pierre Lagrange could have bought any number of gloriously grand country houses when he sold the Malverleys estate in Berkshire in 2009. Instead, what he was looking for was a modest ‘Beatrix-Potter cottage with a view’ nearby, as his family loved the area and wanted to keep up their ties there.