Great Expectations

With a dream of what could be, this garden owner has transformed unkempt paddocks and grazing land into a vision of formal beauty with an enduring sense of history and romance.

- Naomi Slade

When Simon Hobson first saw his new home in East Berkshire, he was struck by the garden’s potential. Its pond was weedy and overgrown, the changes in level were challenging and much of the space was used for grazing, but the sense of what could be had him assembling collaborators before he even took ownership of the keys. “The house is part Tudor, with a Georgian frontage,” says Simon. “What should have been the garden had become some rather grizzly paddocks. I decided to turn them back into a garden and knew that I wanted something traditional, in keeping with the age of the house and the space around it. I like straight lines so the formality of topiary was very appealing.”