For a few years with my youngest son and
family, we had been looking for a suitable house to have shared but
separate living accommodation. After looking at several houses which
were not suitable, we decide to view Colsterdale House owned by our
friends Andy and Sue Barrett.
I was a little concerned as knowing the
property and land that view to Norland had disappeared due to the
building of two new houses. There was no cause for concern as our views
are not interrupted by the houses, and are as magnificent now as they
were some 50 years ago when I was a lad. What we had was, in Andy's
Words "a very tired garden and overgrown woodland".
Mr Denny, who
build his house to the front and side of Colsterdale House, had spent a
substantial amount of landscaping to a very high standard, and I mean a
very high standard. So after being introduced to Mr.Richard Jowett, or
"Benny" as he has been renamed, we asked what and how he could help us.
We
had worked tirelessly chopping, burning and pruning for several
weekends to try to get to a workable position. After reaching this stage
we had some discussions with Richard Jowett. First was the building of a
new drystone boundary wall roughly 40 metres long. Dry Stone walling is
a dying art, but to ensure that art is to survive, Richard has
recruited an apprentice trained drystone waller, along with his son
David, to ensure quality dry stone walling remains within their scope of
supply.
With the wall complete, back filling took place some 20
loads to fill in the void. To reshape the garden area and parking space
most of the old edging stones were replaced with new to form the new
areas.
The next part of the work was to form both a decked sitting
area and a safe play area with a 'bark' area for the playhouse,
trampoline and slide. For the decked area sollid breezeblocks were laid
onto a concrete base to ensure rigidity to the decking construction. To
complete this area sample tressle fences were installed to separate the
various areas.
Topsoil was next on the agenda. This was offloaded
and levelled and raked and raked and levelled again and just prior to
final raking, flowers and plants were planted to generate the borders.
Again the raking was completed and the new turf laid, this again was
turned into an artform by Mr Jowett's men. So the lawn and garden to the
front of the house is complete to a very high standfrd, but affordable
standard.
"We gave Richard a brief of what we would like and
Richard's ideas have surpassed our expectations and captured everything
and more that we dreamt of. The front garden will look even more
spectacular over the next few months".
"The garden areas to the
side and the rear of the house are work in progress at the moment, but
mark my word, even at this early stage we believe that these areas will
be even more spectacular."
