Highgate

The clients approached me because of my background in the art world, specifically my time at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, once the home of Jim and Helen Ede and their collection of British and European modernist art that they gifted to the University in 1966. 

The clients also collect modern art of that period and were on the point of renovating and extending their home of 20 years, a house built in the 1930s when many of the artists in their collection were active.

Although keen gardeners, with the exception of a circular terrace at the rear the garden lacked structure and the renovation was an opportunity to start again.

I retained the circular terrace, evolving the layout to echo the ‘relief’ paintings of Ben Nicholson; rigorous interplays of light and shadow across circles, rectangles and squares.

The garden is south-facing but the seating area at the rear is shaded by trees and now cocooned by table-top yew hedging. This also provides a backdrop for the concrete urn bought years ago from Charleston, a replica of the one in its garden created by artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in the 1920s.

There is a terrace immediately outside the house to extend the living spaces inside with a vine-covered pergola by the kitchen. A lawn was included for the grandchildren and the remaining garden filled with plants that provide colour from April to November.