Surrey Cottage Garden

Nestled at the edge of a quiet lane, the newly built cottage garden radiates an effortless charm, blending traditional aesthetics with subtle modern touches.

This project completed in Summer 2022 was a project I did as part of working with Stephen Woodhams Design. It’s a quintessential English cottage with 16th century origins, the client wanted to re-vamp the original garden as it was overgrown and was impractical and very tight to manoeuvre around. 

We first sought to make sense of the level changes and re-build the walls using flint cobbles to emulate the nearby churchyard. Continuing on this trend, we used reclaimed yorkstone from the churchyard as the main paving material along with corten metal edging that really made the garden feel as it had maturity and grounded within the landscape.

The planting focuses on cottage gardens and takes a lot of inspiration from the gardens at Great Dixter in Rye, Kent and from Sissignhurst. We planted a large Nyssa sylvatica tree on the corner of the property to act as a beacon to the house as it’s down a very tight, country lane and the Nyssa is something you will see first. We placed a terrace just opposite a near by field of horses so you can always see the horses grazing as you sit and relax with friends and family.

We planted half of the lawn area with meadow turf to bring the surrounding meadows into the garden and give you a feel of being surrounded by nature.