Broughton Grange

This walled garden is a sixty metre square enclosed space with views out over the Oxfordshire countryside. Until only a few years ago this was nothing more than an enclosed paddock. Now, full of flowers and vegetables, it appears to have been here for decades.

Three south-facing terraces were created along the three metre fall in the ground along the length of the garden. They share some features, but each has its own character. In the warmest part of the garden at the top, a greenhouse nestles in a corner of the walls, surrounded by a tapestry of Mediterranean flowers and grasses. From here a stone rill carries water down to a large stone tank in the centre of the garden, where the planting has a damp meadow character.

Although the garden has a strong formal structure it was conceived entirely in relation to the surrounding landscape and the views to distant tree clumps, hills, valleys and vistas. At one end of the scale trees and shrubs familiar from the surrounding hedges and woods make up the components of the garden’s structural planting. At the other end of the scale, the microscopic cellular structure of beech, ash and oak leaves from the hedgerow trees surrounding the garden is magnified several thousand times to make the pattern of the parterre on the lowest terrace.

Watch video of this garden.