A formal parterre
for a Georgian rectory.

The brief

An eighteenth-century garden, brought back into use.

The Whitfield family bought the rectory in 2019 with the intention of restoring its bones rather than reimagining them. A previous owner had laid lawn over what historic plans suggested had been a formal parterre, and the central space — bounded on two sides by yew hedging older than the house itself — felt too significant to leave as it was.

We were brought in early, before any structural decisions had been made about the wider grounds. The brief asked us to design something that honoured the rectory's history without producing a museum piece, and to build it to a standard that the listed-building inspectorate would never need to look at twice.

We never specify a stone we couldn't lay, a tree we couldn't source, or a planting plan we couldn't keep alive.

The design

The parterre we proposed draws on the rectory's existing geometry — the stone steps, the line of the south wall, and the symmetry of the central east-facing windows. Four box-edged beds frame a central seating circle in Yorkstone, salvaged from a demolished farmhouse twenty miles away.

Within the beds, the planting is intentionally less formal than the structure suggests. We specified a mix of Salvia nemorosa, Nepeta racemosa, and old-fashioned roses that the rectory's first occupants would likely have recognised, edged with low Buxus sempervirens grown on at our own nursery.

The build

Work began in October 2022 with the careful lifting of two-and-a-half tonnes of existing turf, screened soil samples sent for lab analysis, and a drainage assessment that revealed Victorian land drains still functioning beneath the lawn — a happy surprise that meant minimal additional groundworks.

The Yorkstone setts arrived on a flat-bed in early March, were laid by hand on a 150mm MOT Type 1 base over the course of three weeks, and pointed in lime mortar (rather than cement) to match the rectory's existing stonework. Box hedging followed in late April, with herbaceous planting in May to give the beds time to establish before summer.

The garden was handed over in late June, on a still evening with the swallows out. Our aftercare team have visited monthly since.