MEETING OF MINDS

Landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith has worked closely with architect Ptolemy Dean to create a garden that unifies a 15th-century house and barn

- WORDS PAULA MCWATERS

From time to time, a landscaping project comes along that requires particularly delicate handling. This Tudor yeoman farmer's house, built in 1485, with later additions, is just such a place. Hidden away down a long private driveway in a fold in the Kentish Weald, it is a place of exceptional charm, hugged by ancient oaks, with unspoilt views in every direction. The previous owner, whose father bought the estate in the 1930s, enjoyed living here from age nine until her nineties, and the new owners have continued to cherish its peaceful natural beauty.

While architect Ptolemy Dean, who specialises in historic preservation, tackled the Grade II*- listed house and outbuildings, landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith was brought in to remodel the garden. These two fertile minds have worked together and exchanged ideas on various projects over more than three decades, so the combination has proved very fruitful.

What was needed, says Tom, was “careful and respectful restoration of a landscape and buildings that would make it work for the new owners, while ensuring that it would not feel as though it had had a total makeover”. Existing features included fine old trees, carpets of scillas and a woodland dell filled with camellias and flowering cherries. Tom's brief was to design a beautiful garden in the areas around the house, creating something of the feel of Great Dixter, with its topiary, yew hedges and frothy, naturalised planting, but “a bit more outward looking”.

Off to one side of the manor house is a medieval barn, but the two buildings felt disparate and there was an incongruous car park between them. The owners were keen to preserve the rural aspect of the estate and to open up the countryside views from the house, so car parking has now been tucked away out of sight, further up the drive.