Private Residence
Virginia Water, Surrey
- Location
- Virginia Water, Surrey
- Type
- Private Residence
- Scope
- Landscape Design · Pool · Outdoor Living
- Completed
- 2024
A two-acre plot on the Wentworth fringe, reworked around a new rear extension to give the house a calm, level relationship with the landscape beyond.
The Brief
The family had extended the house and inherited a garden that no longer made sense — steep, disconnected and dominated by an ageing terrace. They wanted a single, generous outdoor room for swimming, dining and quiet, with year-round structure and views held open to the treeline.
The Design
We re-cut the levels into three broad terraces, each one aligned to a structural bay of the extension. The pool sits on the middle terrace, its far edge dissolving into the planting so the water reads as landscape rather than equipment.
Materials
Sawn grey limestone in large format for the terraces, honed for grip and laid to a wide 3mm joint. Bronze-anodised trims, dark-stained cedar for the pool house, and pale gravel to the woodland walk.
Planting
Multi-stem Betula utilis jacquemontii grouped in threes, underplanted with Hakonechloa, Molinia and Hydrangea arborescens. Clipped yew and box give evergreen weight through the winter months.
Outdoor Living
A shaded pool pavilion, an outdoor kitchen tucked against the boundary wall, and a sunken fire terrace that keeps the garden in use from March to November.
The Finished Landscape
Two summers on, the birches have closed over the pool walk and the grasses have thickened. The garden already reads as though it predates the extension it was designed around.
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