LATE BLOOMER
Not for Pierre Lagrange the heady days of high summer. He wanted a garden that hits its peak just as the days shorten and the first frosts fall
This glorious Berkshire garden was designed by RHS Gold-medal winner Tom Stuart-smith for financier Pierre Lagrange, to come into its own throughout autumn and winter
As one of Britain’s top financiers – not to mention owner of Huntsman, the stylish Savile Row tailor featured in the Kingsman films – Pierre Lagrange could have bought any number of gloriously grand country houses when he sold the Malverleys estate in Berkshire in 2009. Instead, what he was looking for was a modest ‘Beatrix-potter cottage with a view’ nearby, as his family loved the area and wanted to keep up their ties there.
He had mentioned this to a friend long established in the parish, who called him when he was on holiday and told him about Hatch House, a Grade-ii Georgian red-brick farmhouse with outbuildings and 12 acres in the next-door village, which was about to come on the market: not exactly a cottage but in the quiet, vernacular style he had been hoping for. Having sent round his architect to have a look (he approved), Pierre bought it, sight unseen, before the For Sale sign had even gone up. On his return, Pierre came to inspect his new purchase, which had wonderful, far-reaching views of the nearby downland and West Woodhay estate.
There was little existing garden to speak of, so Pierre brought in multiple RHS Gold Medal-winning landscape designer Tom Stuart-smith, with whom he had worked closely on several other of his properties. It was important to both that the place should keep its ‘integrity’, nothing inappropriately smart or flash – this is a farmhouse after all, not a mansion – and with a garden that would look its best from the end of September through to February, which is when the family and their friends would use it most.
The outbuildings to the north would become guest accommodation, so Pierre and Tom decided on tall grasses
❝ THE GARDEN IS FULL OF SURPRISES. EACH PARTERRE HAS THE SAME MIX OF PLANTS, YET THEY ARE ALL SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT, AS EACH GROWS AT ITS OWN PACE ❞
and late perennials planted in a regular grid of beds enclosed by cloud-pruned box, reminiscent of a kitchen garden. The likes of hylotelephium (sedums), Verbena bonariensis, echinaceas and the buff seed heads on tall stems of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ keep their structure right the way through the frosts and into early next season until, at last, the gardener can have his way and chop them down.
Although designed primarily for autumnal and winter interest, there is plenty that looks wonderful earlier in the year – including the zinging greens of euphorbias and young grasses; purple heads of Allium sphaerocephalon and masses of roses, climbing up the walls of the house and billowing in the borders.
To the south of the house is where the long views are. Here the planting is laid out in a similar grid pattern to the north, but with mown grass paths between the beds, rather than the granite stone strips of the former area, and the planting consisting largely of grasses and meadow flowers. This area is again enclosed by high hedges with a hole cut and a wooden gate added at the far end, so the meadowland and distant landscape can be admired from the terrace. This ‘borrowed’ landscape seems to be a continuation of the garden as the two subtly blend together.
Pierre is now married to Ebs Burnough, a specialist in strategic communications and former adviser to Michelle Obama, and they have a one-year-old daughter (to join his three sons). Despite owning properties around the globe, for the couple, and Pierre’s children, ‘this soon became the place where we wanted to be. It is not important architecture. It is just authentic.’
❝ Even when the flowers are over, there’s fantastic structure all winter. I love to see the seed heads, stems and grasses on a frosty day ❞