THE KINGS GATE GARDEN
Artist: Juliet Haysom
Client: Bloor Homes / Amesbury Town Council
Landscape Architect: Cynthia Filipiak-Szymborska / Frus Studio
Landscape Contractor: Tony Benger Landscapes Ltd
Artist Juliet Haysom has been appointed by Ginkgo Projects to develop designs for a community garden in Kings Gate, Amesbury. The garden site was a patch of unloved land, previously used as a storage area by construction teams building the surrounding housing estates. It formed a wedge between the open expanse of the playing fields, a supported living home and housing that had been adopted by dog walkers.
Juliet Haysom’s research and design development began with the landscape around Amesbury, predominantly chalk and flint, with open grasslands and large skies. The significant landmarks of Stonehenge and Salisbury Plain are also close by.
Juliet has designed a garden that responds to our ongoing relationship to the chalk landscape around Amesbury. Many feet have cut white chalk paths into the landscape over centuries, revealing the geology beneath; this landscape of white and green and its specific flora and fauna forms the basis of the design rationale of the garden.
The garden will be created to have a naturalistic, loose edged and informal feel, with native planting, areas of wild flowers, chalk wildlife scrapes and many new trees to provide shelter.
Juliet is creating a series of stone and terrazzo blocks forming circles throughout the garden, providing gathering places and opportunities to rest and enjoy the landscape. A number of these circles will be cut from natural limestone. The offcuts produced during the fabrication of these stone blocks will be cast into further blocks within a terrazzo mix and in turn, the offcuts from these will be cast into further circles with the aim of producing minimal waste from their fabrication and a fascinating visual effect within the seating.
The garden is to be constructed in early 2024. Local people will be invited to get involved in the planting and care of this space which will be in the heart of the community.
From Juliet Haysom’s Design Sketchbook:
The new garden’s design is intended to support naturalistic planting and native species (as well as ornamental planting). The subsurface design is based on the bedrock of chalk which is found directly below the topsoil of the site, and which extends across Amesbury’s wider landscape context.
Paths have been designed to be constructed of calciferous limestone (Purbeck-Portland) which is self-binding, porous, of a similar off-white tone to the chalk, but provides a more hard-wearing surface than can be guaranteed with chalk.
The intention is for the garden to carry some of the same loose-edged, informal qualities characteristic of chalk grassland in order to create habitat that supports local biodiversity, and that will mature in a way that is attractive, sustainable and low-maintenance.