Heron Lodge

Private Estate

Location: Mortimer, Reading

Client: Private Client

Status: Ongoing

This private residence is set within a large, sprawling rural landscape, located 2.2 miles from Burghfield, within the Natural England, national character area ‘Thames Basin Heaths’. Burghfield`s history can be traced back to The Three Manors which kept the natural heathlands as hunting grounds.

This area is characterised by large and continuous mosaics of lowland heathland, dry heathland, woodland, acid grassland and farming. Bogs, ponds, and streams enhance the rich biodiversity of the area as well as historic features such as barrows, bronze age farming patterns and habitat mosaics which are a legacy of historic hunting.

Geologically the site is within a London Clay Plateau. This gives rise to acid, freely draining and light soils favoured by heather, gorse, bracken, oak.

The Design Approach: Ephemeral Ponds

The design concept is inspired by the sites natural and historical context. The overall design language mirrors those of seasonal ephemeral pools that are prevalent on clay soils. Exploring the relationship between the natural processes of erosion and the interaction between water and the land.

Water creates these forms through the process of saturation, evaporation, and attrition of the lands surface. By adopting the forms left behind by water into the design, we can seamlessly and organically integrate the entirety of the site.

Abstracting and extrapolating these unique and sculptural patterns we have created an organic but controlled design language which aimed to emphasize the sites natural context and contrast with the more formal architectural style.

Service offered: Landscaping

For more projects completed by our Landscape Architect team click here

CGLA are an award winning team of Landscape Architects, Garden Designers  Landscapers and Garden Maintenance Operatives working in Buckinghamshire, London and the South East, as well as on prestigious design projects across the UK and abroad. We are currently working in Oman, Jersey and France, and welcome enquires for design, landscaping or garden maintenance. Contact us here