The sky's not the limit: Horseshoe Bend Garden, London NW10

Juliet Roberts visits a garden that pushes the boundaries of space, light and colour to dazzling effect

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IT’S immediately apparent that there are a number of extraordinary things about this courtyard garden in west London. First, how big it feels, despite the modest 30ft by 20ft footprint, and, second, the bold use of colour. It’s also striking that, although this feels like a retreat from the city in the way the design cleverly connects the inside with the outside and the garden with the sky, the overall feel is one of expansiveness, rather than enclosure.

The sky has long influenced the garden’s owner, Martha Krempel, who grew up under the wide open skies of Yorkshire. After studying sculpture, she worked in a variety of disciplines, including styling men’s period clothing for film, making lighting and as an interior designer before turning her hand to gardens. Thus, when she and her family moved house in 2015, she was in a perfect position to redesign both house and garden.

It was Martha’s daughter who came up with the idea of creating a building to link the house to the garage at the end of the property (now Martha’s studio). The house wraps around the courtyard on three sides, with the brick boundary wall forming the fourth side. Sitting in the glass-sided extension, there’s not a building in sight, only sky. ‘It feels as if you could be anywhere,’ says Martha.