Design

English Landscape Gardens

This is NT Stowe in Buckinghamshire one of the best known 18th century English Landscape Gardens. This type of garden is vast and really only accessible to the very rich who often created them as a statement as much as just because they could.

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Stowe Landscape Gardens, Buckinghamshire

I recently visited NT Stowe, Buckinghamshire, a huge ‘garden’ full of ‘garden’ buildings, statues, dams and bridges, created by Viscount Cobham from 1717 working with several landscape designers and architects

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Street Art Lighting, Bath

I love the way the shadows of this sculpture play across the stone paving when the lights come on in the evening. It’s a focal point, art installation, meeting point, lighting and way finder.

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Antique horse tether, Siena

All around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of medieval Siena you see these wonderful iron horse tethers fixed into the walls of buildings at about 6′ high. There are 17 different designs across the city each advertising which ‘ward’ or ‘contrada’ they represent.

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Design guide: Sheltered, shady corner

The vast acreage of the Upton House gardens (National Trust) may be difficult to replicate but there are plenty of design ideas that can inspire and be used on a much smaller scale. This is a quiet, shady corner on a little path feels quite enclosed and hidden.

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Eryngium

This bright blue firework of a flower is an eryngium (or sea holly) – a fabulous architectural plant. There are many different eryngiums mostly grown ornamentally and can be annual or perennial (this one is perennial), usually blue or white (the most well-known being ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’).

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Eyecatchers

Eyecatchers are a great way to draw people around a garden and to show them where you’d like them to go – that there’s something else to see. Not many of us have the space that they have at Chatsworth to play with eyecatchers on this scale, but they work on any scale.

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Hall of Memory, Birmingham

I love taking photos of buildings in reflections and through old wonky glass. I love the way the glass distorts the building and how you view it. It brings another dimension to the scene. This image also plays with the scale of people

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Hydrangeas, Weston Park

I visited Weston Park for the first time this week for a heritage event – previously I’ve only got as far as The Granary restaurant. It’s a fabulous place so if you’re at a loose end this weekend and it’s good weather, I highly recommend it.

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