Dan Pearson is certainly a name that gets us talking around the water cooler here in the office – and for all the right reasons!
Dan’s historic ‘Berkshire’ property is widely regarded as the most accomplished house and garden to come out of the early 20th century garden & landscape partnership between designers Edwin Lutyens & Gertrude Jekyll.
In 2009 Dan was invited to produce a new landscape design master plan for both Berkshire’s gardens and surrounding landscape – moving the gardens successfully into the 21st century.
The historic garden and hard landscaping was painstakingly restored. The gardens had been through many iterations over the years and, as a result, were overwhelmed, overgrown or insensitively replaced. Rather than preserving or copying the original planting, Dan reinvigorated and reinterpreted them using a contemporary palette of plants that reference Jekyll’s design aesthetic.
Where the original design saw a series of inward-looking hedged gardens, Dan designed a new entrance drive from the south to embrace the surrounding landscape and better integrate the garden, grounds and landscape. A line of ancient oaks follow a historic watercourse which Dan has now extended to run the length of the garden’s western boundary. The lake itself has been set in newly seeded wildflower meadows.
The one acre walled garden has been brought into self-sufficient production. New configurations of paths divide the garden into areas for annual vegetables, perennial vegetables, herbs, a rose garden and an annual cutting garden. The borders that frame the garden contain a mix of soft fruit, shrubs, stock beds and propagation areas for the ornamental gardens. A number of pergolas showcasing fruit and vines have also been included and are ideal places for summer entertaining.
We find it hard to look at these images without wishing we were there…and we’re sure you’ll agree.
To view more of Dan’s stunning Berkshire project click here.
