The custodians of an historic abbey requested a concept design to develop land beside its remains.  They wished to explore the potential of creating a garden ‘destination’ to be developed in time. The Abbey Gardens concept is inspired by the layouts of monastic foundations.  It interprets the various functional spaces of Abbey and Priory gardens to create a series of garden experiences for today’s public.  Visitors would enjoy a series of visually-stimulating spaces accessed via a network of pathways.  

A traditional formal layout is blended into the landscape by plantations of ornamental grasses and native trees.  It is bisected by axial pathways which can be mown grass or laid to gravel.  Pedestrian circuits loosen up and become more free-form as the gardens blend into its surroundings.

Effects are mainly created through planting.  Constructed elements take the abbey ruins as inspiration.  Dramatic and low-maintenance seasonal interest is created with a selection of small, ornamental flowering trees.  More detailed planting schemes, in the three main enclosures can be simple, or more complex. 

Features include: The Cloisters (enclosed by a dramatic double row of pleached hornbeam).  Garden of Simples (the main ‘flower garden’, enclosed by an evergreen hedge).  Hortus Conclusus (surrounded by an evergreen hedge and a simple timber).  Fish Ponds (two large, shallow ponds and surrounding mown grass and ornamental trees).  Green Amphitheatre (embankment sculpted into the existing hillside).  Orchard (a double row of fruit trees underplanted with spring bulbs).  Lavender Garden.  Twelve Apostles (a walk with a double avenue of topiary domes set in ornamental grasses).  Wilderness. (walks in the existing woodland).  Meadows and Water Meadow (blending the formal gardens into the surroundings, accessed via serpentine walks).  Arched Pergola. ‘Gate Houses’ and pavilions (simple structures in timber or box section steel echoing the arches of the Abbey ruins).