WEAVING MAGIC
With Lucy and Melfort Campbell’s garden an abundance of colour, it’s the perfect source of inspiration for their daughter’s textiles business, says Antoinette Galbraith
Altries House sits mid-way up the side of the Dee Valley with dramatic westerly views over the River Dee with Ben Avon and Lochnagar hills in the distance. It was this striking river view that Lucy and Melfort Campbell sought to capitalise when they took over the late 19th-century house from his parents in 2009.
‘We used to live in the estate’s main farmhouse on top of a hill,’ explains Lucy. ‘It was very windy but it was always light, and I knew I had to create light when we moved here.’ With the blessing of her parents-in-law Lucy and Melfort first restored the house to suit contemporary living, adding a paved terrace in front of the house furnished with tables and chairs for entertaining. Work then began on the garden.
They began by thinning the belt of trees that surrounded the house, all but blocking the river views. The aim was to allow light to filter through the trees while allowing enough space to admire each tree for its individual beauty. This in turn would lighten the undergrowth and allow room for existing plantings of rhododendrons to flourish. Such decisions, Lucy says, were not easily made and much thought was required.
Next she called on garden designer and friend Jayne James-Duff to help with landscaping and terracing the sloping land north of the house and formalising areas to the east. ‘Jayne had a blank canvas,’ Lucy says. ‘Her first challenge was getting the levels right, but she
Jayne had a blank canvas – she immediately understood my interest in symmetr“
immediately understood my interest in symmetry and the importance of linking all the lines and curves of the house to the garden.’
The final scheme resulted in a lawn flowing from the trees towards a flat, semi-enclosed lawn backed by a 10ft tall north-facing wall built in a distinctive style, discretely hiding a tennis court. Reached via a flight of stone steps this space is backed with a herbaceous bed while the top of the steps is punctuated by a pair of fragrant Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’.
This is the first of many unusual details that highlight the scheme. Others include a bed of hellebores tucked below a wall at the side of the back door where their leaves can be easily cut back on a chilly winters day, the white flowering wisteria neatly espaliered up the wall enclosing the vegetable garden, or the blue flowering Clematis Alpina scrambling along the low wall enclosing the terrace in front of the house.
The perfect place to eat, entertain or just enjoy the view over the lower garden, the paved terrace is furnished with container-grown plants including a pair of bay trees in pots on either side of the French windows.
Below, to your right, mown paths meander through the woodlands where a newly commissioned slate sculpture by Dumfriesshire-based artist Joe Smith reinforces the contemporary feel of the clean lines and open spaces.
‘The sphere was made from slate from
material“I realised I could use the garden as a source of inspiration and s
the original house roof,’ Lucy explains, adding that most of the stone used to build the walls and steps was recycled from the down takings of the house. ‘I hate waste,’ she adds.
When it came to the planting Lucy and Melfort’s daughter Araminta Campbell, who became passionate about weaving shortly before graduating from Manchester Metropolitan with a degree in Fine Art Embroidery, had a major influence. ‘I wasn’t knowledgeable about gardening but became more interested when I found I could use the garden as a source of inspiration and materials for my work,’ says Araminta. Ideas and colours to use in her tweeds were drawn from the River Dee, the spring woodlands filled with bluebells, spring foliage or golden autumn reflections of trees in the river.
Araminta also wanted to use naturally obtained dyes, so with the help of long-term gardener Michael Allanach, who continues to make an important contribution to this garden, she began researching suitable plants.
‘Marigolds and comfrey and sage are the obvious ones,’ she explains. ‘But we also looked into ivy, nettles, walnut trees, rowan berries and brambles to create
exactly the right shades of brown, blue, red and yellow.’
Vegetables are grown in the Victorian walled garden – a pair of white Wisteria floribunda ‘Alba’ are neatly trained up the outside wall – perched on the side of the hill just before you reach the house. Growing vegetables is as much a passion for Lucy as the landscape is for her daughter and here the box-edged layout is being restored and revitalised to include trellises and arches made by Michael to support sweet peas, runner beans and roses.
Recently a greenhouse was built near the garden entrance and here seeds are started and tomatoes are grown alongside a collection of red and pink pelargonium and a bed of carnations suitable for picking.
Approached via a wide sandy path flanked with grassy areas on both sides the greenhouse sets the tone for this imaginative garden with a contemporary feel that sits so well in its striking landscape. ‘I am fortunate,’ Lucy says, ‘to have a generous and supportive husband who makes all this possible.’