Garden Marian Boswall, Principal at Marian Boswall Landscape Architects


Listed Heritage Landscape Architect and Specialist in Historic Garden Conservation Marian Boswall shares her approach to framing and opening up views and prospects in a country garden with tips on restoring or creating a ‘ha-ha’.


Setting the scene


I


n my first article on conserving a period garden I recommended beginning by researching the history and understanding the setting. This is key for a country garden


as it will often have originally been planned to make the most of the setting, using the natural landform of the site when it was originally built.


Those canny local builders who knew their land so well may have sheltered you from north winds in the ley of a south facing slope, planted clumps of trees to break up the prevailing south westerlies on their way up a valley, framed the view and faced the key terraces to catch the morning and evening sun or the farmyard to make the most of natural springs and drainage. If that is the case you are lucky and it is vital to make the most of their local expertise in restoring the best of their design ideas.


They may also have positioned the house to sit on a once quiet lane to London or Edinburgh that has since become a busy road, or in such a cleverly strategic place that it has attracted many other houses in the intervening years, and that will be important to take into account in conservation measures too.


Old maps will show how the original layout may have changed with land ownership, the addition of buildings and extensions and planting fashions. In some of our clients’ gardens old views have been blocked by a plantation of then fashionable conifers, elegant long carriage drives have been sold off to neighbours and unfortunate buildings or extensions have turned a house around to face away from the best


34 Listed Heritage Magazine September/October 2018


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