the place

the brief

"The property is listed, and we want to stay true to many of its original features”.

"the garden feels like one long path down one side…” it needs to change, to be functional and have some defined purposes"

”Create a garden with natural, locally sourced materials where possible, that can reasonably look after itself”

Moor Cottage is Netherton’s oldest farmhouse, once standing at the edge of open Pennine moorland before a village slowly grew around it.

A garden shaped by the memory of moorland farming life, in a contemporary space reimagined for a young family

the site

Fragments of the site still carry traces of its agricultural past: narrow passages, informal thresholds, leftover corners and distant views toward the surrounding Pennine landscape.

concept

Envisage a place once grazed, tilled, and weathered by wind and work. Now imagine it once more, in a beautiful new green space befitting its hill farming past.

atmosphere and planting

Set out along paths through the junipers and soft grasses of high meadow; sit and relax amid the rowans, ferns and wildflowers of moorland edge; and play beside the bilberries and heathers of open heath; on a journey inspired by upland landscapes

the design

The garden invites that past to linger. Not as nostalgia, but as a garden of gentle contrasts: between past and present, enclosure and openness, house and heath

Anchored by the sandstone farmhouse, garden lines flow outward from its historic geometry, softening into looser, more naturalistic forms as they reach the site’s edges. Boundaries reference the area’s dry-stone heritage, with locally sourced stones and gravels. Occasional new features quietly nod to the site’s working past, in a restrained material palette complementing the house. Meanwhile, planting is simple, elegant and often native; inspired by the Pennines that lie beyond

project status

Gone to tender