Shawford Park

Hampshire

Shawford Park is a Carolean house set between two arms of the River Itchen. The formal gardens have been redesigned using seventeenth-century features in a fresh approach. New ramparts, a bastion and a walled potager combine with modern sculpture to form a distinct and protected boundary to the cultivated garden.

Beyond the garden fortifications, a contemporary interpretation of water meadows has replaced a gang-mown polo pitch and helipad. Sinuous channels of fast flowing alkaline water curve between a quilted landscape of wildflowers,. The grazed water meadow is now a rich habitat for the endangered Southern Damselfly.