Little Acres Sanctuary...

This post is a shout out to the lovely and irrepressible Jacqui Emmett, of Little Acres.

Peter and I first met Jacqui when she purchased some of our Wessex Saddleback pigs for Little Acres Cottage. 

Since then we have watched her blog and her farm project take off. And this has not gone unnoticed by others either. In fact, she has been chosen for a pay it forward award, and in the new year a whole team of philanthropic lovelies (overseen by the press) are going to help her transform her land into a realised dream of the perfect animal sanctuary for lifestyle animals.

She has been working hard at taking on injured and unloved animals and nursing them back to health, as well as rearing her own lifestyle animals. As you can see, she already has a wide variety...

So, congratulations Jacqui and family. All the best with this. Alas, I regret to say that due to a previous engagement I will not be able to join the festivities, but Peter will be there to help out, and here's hoping that plenty of others will too. Any dear readers who want to be a part of that special weekend should contact Jacqui through her blog.

Fondest Regards,

David.

The Entrance Begins...

And so, the work on the entrance has begun. It started with removing the fence along the road frontage, removing the Black Walnut tree to the left of the driveway, re-centring the driveway (which will involve shifting the avenue of plane trees 3m to the left this winter), and starting to put in the footings for the wall.

Above and Below: The Black Walnut tree

Above and Below: Removing the Leiland hedge (Temporarily) which I had planted on the day of the royal wedding.

Below: The Walnut being felled...

Above: Morning

Below: Next Afternoon

It was a shame that the Black Walnut had to go. I don't like cutting down trees, but it was right in the way, and it was quite old (branches would usually fall down during high winds). It will be replaced by a pair of weeping willows on either side of the entrance. But to assuage my guilt further, I called the local wood turners' association and offered the wood to them. Black Walnut can make some stunning pieces, and it would have only ended up as firewood otherwise...

 

 Above: Planks of Black Walnut

Below: Some turned Black Walnut

 Pity there was not quite enough to make a black walnut counter top...

Nymphaeum 2...

The Nymphaeum is coming along nicely. 

Above: Looking south towards the entrance.

Below: Looking north from the entrance.

We were lucky enough to find 7 of these carved stone benches to go around the hedging. But alas, have yet to find any Herms/Terms. If anyone knows where We might source some could they please let us know - it would be most appreciated.

Above: An example of one of the benches

As you can see, the hedge has grown about 8 feet in the last year...

Above: Last Spring

Below: This Spring

On our last visit to London we went back to Kew, as I wanted to take some photos of the Herms/Terms there. I had mentioned them in my previous blog, but was disappointed to find I hadn't any nice photos of them from our previous trip. So, here they are...

A Grand Opening...

This week we finally broke ground on the first building project at Willowbrook - The Entrance. We had spent a lot of time researching and designing the wrought iron gates and the entrance walls. We started looking at a few entrance concepts a couple of years ago (previous post on gate ideas).

We wanted the gates to be suitable impressive and elegant without being over the top. The over the top option was excluded by council bylaws anyway, which state that gates may not be more than 2 metres high. So, we made sure the highest point of the gate was at 2m, and then worked backwards...

The scrolling top for the gate was based on a gate in London that I had taken a photo of, near Kew Gardens:

It is of course made of cast iron, but we will manage to execute a similar effect with forged iron. The gate above, however, was only about 2.5m wide, and our gate had to be 5m wide to allow for commercial vehicles to come in and out during the construction. So we elongated the design, and placed scalloped sections on either side of the gate, so that the scroll work didn't loose too much of its proportions.

Above: The idea for the scalloped sections.

Then we had to decide about styles of pillar...

Above: These were my favourite pillars, with the curved mouldings at the top which will match the curved moulding on the front of the manor house architrave.

Urns and finials seem to be popular for atop the pillars, but we had already sourced some stone lions from Gloucestershire for the job...

Other Pillars and toppers...

Then we had to decide upon which way the walls would curve.

Inwards...

or outwards...

 or not at all...

We went for the first choice, as curving inwards allows us to have more space for gardens, and also for vehicles to pull in off the road.

Below is my plan for the gardens around the entrance - formal with a variety of shades of green, and differing heights. The Leilandii hedge running along the front of the property with tuck in behind the front wall and grow about 2 feet taller than the wall. This will add security, and continuity with the rest of the front hedge, and will allow the perpendicular hornbeam hedges to be grown to the same same height without being seen end-on from the road. 

For scale, the driveway is 5 metres wide, with the plane trees being shown at their current size. Their canopies will eventually drape over the outermost third of the driveway, creating a dramatic avenue visible from the road. The Willows will be planted just outside of the hornbeam hedges, so that their trunks will not be visible from the pedestrian gates, and they will cascade over the front wall on either side, flanking the entrance.

An example of a 2 tiered retaining wall with a garden sandwiched in the middle...

Next: where to put the pedestrian gates? 

It seems traditional to have them on the main frontage, on either side of the vehicular gate. We, however, have decided to sit them at 90 degrees to the main gate, just inside the front wall. This will allow us to place an ornamental focal point against the hornbeam hedging, in the direct line of sight from the pedestrian gates for added interest, and means that the pedestrian gate is next to the post box.

We had already found the lights that we liked, which are similar to these below...

We feel that the lights had to be large enough to really stand out, esp as the whole gate and wall had been scaled back to meet local regulations. Little lamps, although sweet, would not cut it...

Then decisions about letter box placement. We decided to incorporate it into the pillar of the wall closest to the road, so that the postman could easily access it from the car window. Having rural delivery means that if you have a flag attached to the box, you can both receive and send mail from your box - very convenient in the country. Our Architect designed a fold away brass lever system to pop the flag in and out of a slot in the pillar.

 and finally, to gild or not to gild?

Solid gold would look far too ostentatious and attract the wrong sort of attention, but a subtle gold crest painted on a black background would be stylish without being gaudy. Hence keeping the circle in the scrolling top of the gate just like at Kew...

I look forward to sharing mores pictures with you as it progresses.