Adding sites to the Historic England Register
DOMINIC COLE
Water Gardens, London in 2015; Image Kate Harwood
Reflections on the fantastic achievement of The Gardens Trust and Historic England in adding some twenty later Twentieth Century gardens and landscapes to the Register earlier this year.
One of those sites, the Water Gardens in Edgware Road in London, designed by Philip Hicks in the 1960s, has had a ‘contemporary makeover’ that has detracted from many of the elements of the original simple bold design: the paving, broad flat planes of reflecting watering, a clever planting scheme with knowledgeable and diverse use of trees and shrubs which avoided the design idea of repeat use of the same tree or shrub throughout the scheme.
Image: Dominic Cole
Planter, image: Dominic Cole
Ceiling detail of podium Image: Dominic Cole
Lighting block image Kate Harwood
The structure, layout, levels and water bodies of the original survive, but it is the additions and changes that have scribbled over the original simplicity: new, coloured, over-detailed paving; new cubes of topiary yew, fussy herbaceous planting, unfortunate turquoise colouring in the water; over-exuberant fountains and over-cleaning of some of the subtle concrete detailing (which had acquired a good patina that emphasised the detailing).
Image: Historic England
Presumably it was argued by the new designers that the planting was ‘tired’; the concrete ‘dirty’ and that the site needed ‘improving’…what it needed was an informed and sensitive approach to the original scheme and to plan for maintenance of what made it special.
Unfortunately the makeover was already underway or complete when the site was assessed by HE
Dominic Cole CMLI FIOH VMM OBE