A lifetime ago and farming in a hilly part of Western Australia, I’d often drive into a paddock and, disturbing a mob of sheep, watch them gather into a flock and dash up the nearest slope, before turning around to stare down at me. They were wondering, I suppose, as merinos are inclined to wonder, whether I was intending to impose yet another indignity upon them. Or perhaps was there some delicious tucker on the back of the utility? The interesting thing was they always headed uphill to gather on some vantage point before stopping to figure these things out. This makes sense. If I were someone up to no good, then the high ground the sheep had retreated to would give them a better chance of outrunning me.
Now, for such profoundly instinctual reasons, people are rather inclined to do the same thing. Given a choice of paths, one leading higher and the other heading lower, visitors to gardens are invariably drawn to explore upwards. Garden designers have always known this, and great Italian Renaissance gardens, such as Villa d’Este and Villa Lante, were designed with their entry at the lowest point to invite visitors to explore up to the villa at the top of the garden. Over the years, and with laziness setting in, the geography of these gardens was altered to allow people to park beside the villa and walk down into the gardens. This was never right. More recently, as restoration progressed, the original layout of these 400‑year‑old institutions was reinstated, with parking returned to its proper location.
When designing Cloudehill in 1992, I was thinking long and hard on such puzzles. Sadly, our only level ground good for parking happens to be at the top of the garden, so I had to find ways to persuade people to explore downwards. Thus, our steps were made to be as comfortable as possible, with handrails and other necessities, and beyond this all I could do was confuse the issue. Cloudehill’s main terrace slopes nearly four metres from the entry steps to the far end, so to disguise this difficulty, I installed two extra small flights of steps simply to hide the slope.
I say all this by way of pointing out that after 33 years we are nearing the completion of a series of gardens at the top of Cloudehill. Happily these conform with rule number one – gardens must always be explored upwards. Even better, all these gardens, some half a dozen altogether, are connected by paths without steps and just the occasional ramp to make it easy for visitors to move from one level to another.
Several months ago a landscaper friend, Wes McIntosh, installed handrails beside the stepping stones up the Commedia Lawn. More recently, these stones were rearranged and Belgium cobble stones were used to create what I hope is an inviting panel of non-slip stepping-stones/cobbles to enable visitors to explore from Cloudehill’s main terrace up to the next terrace. Revealed here is a small glasshouse (for succulents), the Commedia Lawn, the potager, plus one or two minor gardens and a diagonal path leading up to the Upper Terrace at the highest point of the garden.
I have been working on these gardens for 20 years now. In 2007, we purchased a collection of hybrid species camellias from the closing-down sale of the old Camellia Lodge Nursery and planted them as a bank to disguise our septic system. On the same level, four hybrid yews, Taxus x media ‘Hicksii’, were planted to form a formal arc. ‘Hicksii’, a cross between the European and Japanese yews, is more reliable for such purposes than the ordinary Taxus baccata. Eighteen years on, they are all thriving – so much so that we began clipping them a while back. In another three years they will be exactly the topiary specimens we need for this important part of Cloudehill.
Surrounding the area are magnificent plants, including a collection of tree rhododendrons, R. arboreum, which are forms of this species native to China and the Himalayas. Pride of place, there’s the finest rhododendron in Cloudehill, the Himalayan, R. arboreum Delavayi, which happens to be Nepal’s national flower.
This terrace also deserved some architectural attention, so we have erected a screen at one end to invite people to wander up and enjoy the magnificent copper beeches just beyond. And remembering the old Italian gardens and their garden temples, I think a belvedere to enjoy the view would also be good. Yes, somewhere for people to pause and look over the garden, with a circle of paving enclosed by a low-sitting wall, and perhaps a structure, a deconstructed pavilion, its top missing, and some wind chimes floating apparently unsupported.
These are all sketches in my notebook at present. Ideas roughed out while not paying attention to boring evening television programs. We shall see.