Hallowmere · 2025
A courtyard on Mill Lane
A cracked concrete yard behind a terraced house, turned into a green room with a water rill and lights for the evenings.
- Size
- 30 m²
- Build
- 3 weeks
- Plants
- 64
- Lights
- 9
The brief
Six metres by five of cracked concrete, overlooked on three sides, behind a terraced house in town. The owners wanted it to feel like an extra room: green, private, and lit for summer evenings.
The plan
One stone, wall to wall
Pale limestone across the whole yard, the joints lined up with the back doors so it reads as one floor with the kitchen.
Raised beds in black timber
Deep beds along two sides, stained black so the ferns and the maple glow against them.
A rill for the sound
A narrow steel rill along the fence, recirculating, quiet enough to hear only when you're sitting by it.
Screens and light
New black-stained boards on the fence and a festoon across the top: private by day, warm at night.
Small gardens are the hardest to get right: every centimetre shows. This one was overlooked from three upstairs windows and got sun for two hours in the middle of the day.
So we treated it as a room. One stone across the whole floor, lined up with the kitchen. Beds deep enough for a small tree, along the two sides that get the most light. Shade-loving planting that looks lush without sun, and a narrow rill so there’s always the sound of water.
The festoon and six small spotlights in the beds turn it into the place the owners eat most summer evenings.
