Thanks for the reply Niall. I heard Nori talking about the origin of the allee a couple of years ago at a Society of Garden Designers conference - evolution rather than revolution in garden design perhaps! It was one of my favourite features on visits to the garden, particularly when contrasting the shadowy lane it formed with the open space of the lawn alongside.
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It must be very difficult to be the private owner of what has been a public space - so many of us feel an attachment to what has been there before - but it is a very exciting project too and, without doubt, a clean canvas is the easiest way to proceed on this scale. Please keep up the photographs - I drive past the house almost every day and it’s frustrating to know that great things are going on just out of sight!
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It will be fascinating to see the design of paths laid out on the ground - mathematically it’s beautiful, but I have reservations about how it matches the practical brief (I’m sure you’ve heard them all before). I can’t think of any other garden like it - perhaps, on a smaller scale, the closest in feel would be the kitchen garden at Bury Court - but that’s much more rectilinear. The planting will be so powerful in controlling the final atmosphere and scale of the space - I don’t subscribe to the argument that plantsmen can’t design!
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May I wish you every success with the project - and if you need a volunteer for anything muddy I live just around the corner!

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