DANIEL COMBES GARDEN DESIGN

 

SOMERSET Garden Design

Daniel Combes Garden Design studio located near Salisbury in Wiltshire, about 40 minutes drive from the county border with Somerset.  Our team of landscape designers and garden designers use Somerset and the South West of England as a constant source of inspiration.  There is such diversity in the rural landscape.

Our Somerset garden design commissions allow us to harness the raw beauty of the county.  Somerset is rich in environmental assets from its coastline to the Levels, Exmoor to the Mendips. 

 

As a predominantly agricultural county, Somerset is bordered by Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon and Gloucestershire and its coastline runs in to the Bristol Channel.  The county town of Taunton and the surrounding countryside boasts a rich landscape, full of mystical tales and cultural and ancient history.

Somerset is rich in architecture and topography.  Our garden design projects have taken us to houses and gardens of varying sizes; from more modest homes to larger estates.  Each project presents its own challenge and offers the opportunity to draw from Somerset’s rural heritage. 

From an ecological perspective it offers Daniel and our design team the opportunity to learn from the way that man has shaped and continues to manage the county.

Some of the most notable gardens in Somerset include Tintinhull, Hestercombe, The Bishop’s Palace Wells, Tyntesfield; all are fine examples.  While the newly renovated and enlarged gardens at Hadspen House are now form the extensive gardens of The Newt in Somerset, a truly magnificent hotel, garden, farm and parkland showcasing the very best of Somerset.

 
 

The County of SOMERSET

The Somerset Levels and Moors, between the ancient towns of Glastonbury and Wells, is an intricate landscape developed over centuries from the drainage and irrigation of land for agriculture and to manage flood risk.  The Levels have traditionally been used for growing withies, flexible, strong willow stems, used for many centuries for making furniture, baskets and fencing.

This is one of Somerset’s most fragile and protected landscapes for biodiversity, principally breeding wader bird populations; flower-rich wet grasslands; and rich invertebrate communities in the areas rivers and ditches.  Given its height above sea level, it is also a landscape that is extremely vulnerable to climate change, so water management in the form of flood and sea defences are critical for the areas communities.

The Mendip Hills were settled during the Palaeolithic period.  Cheddar Gorge is one of the areas natural landmarks and an AONB.  It is home to an extensive series of caves where examples of cave art have been found.  Stone quarries in this area supplied freestone used in the construction of Wells Cathedral.  Bath stone is also still widely used; Daniel Combes Garden Design use Bath Granite & Marble as a preferred supplier. 

In the medieval period towns such as Castle Cary and Frome grew around the weaving industry, and the town of Street developed as a centre for the production of woollen slippers, boots and shoes. Known for its Cheddar cheese and apple orchards Somerset still produces fruit juices, cider and a range of hard and semi hard cheeses.

As people have relocated from larger cities to the Somerset countryside there has be a noticeable increase in the development of art galleries such as Hauser & Wirth with its Piet Oudolf designed garden, luxury hotels and gardens such as The Newt in Somerset, artisan markets such as Frome Independent, fashion designers such as Temperley and the eponymous Glastonbury music festival.

 

If you have a Somerset garden design project that you wish to discuss, please contact us