Laura Diggens

Landscape masterplan for a 15th century farmhouse in mid-Norfolk. Named after the spring that feeds the holy well of St Agnes which is set within its grounds, the house was a stopping place for pilgrims on their way to the nearby Marian Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham.

The farmhouse had recently been renovated but stood in a sea of grass with nothing to ground it. The house and outbuildings lacked any connection and there was little planting to soften the buildings. Weaving herringbone paths from the outbuildings down to the house and a number of pathways bordered by herbaceous planting, we sought to set the house in its own smaller garden, creating a clearer division between the house garden and the wider landscape.

Specimen trees, a fruit and nut orchard and improved meadows were designed into the wider landscape, adding to the overall biodiversity of the site and bringing greater interest away from the house, enticing people out into the entire site.