Old Lodge & Parkland Routes
Dyrham Park, Nr Bath
Dyrham Park is an ancient landscape that has been occupied by humans since the Bronze Age. Owned by the National Trust, it’s a Grade II* Registered Landscape containing a Grade I mansion house and the Grade II buildings of Old Lodge. This sensitive, palimpsest landscape presented a complex challenge: to make the site more accessible for visitors while protecting important historical and ecological aspects and retaining a sense of discovery and magic.
As part of an ongoing infrastructure project, we created a series of landscape interventions at Old Lodge as well as establishing new parkland routes. Collaborating with landscape heritage specialist Sian Jones, we developed a set of guiding heritage landscape principles. A study of how today’s visitors used the landscape kept our design process relevant for the next chapter.
Status
Completed Summer 2024
Client
Architect
Structure & Civil Engineer
Integral Engineering Design
M and E Engineer
E3 Consulting Engineers LLP
Quantity Surveyor
Synergy Consulting and Property Consulants
Main Contractor
Emery Brothers Ltd
Landscape Contractor
Walmsley Shaw
Photographs
Response to Site
With views west towards Bristol and the Severn Estuary, the site has a wide diversity of landscapes which we took time to map, understand and analyse before sharing any design proposals. We noted that clusters of trees created focal points and destinations, while historic landforms guided people naturally through the site.
There were only traces of historic routes remaining in the landscape, but by overlaying these onto the current site plan and introducing visitor GPS tracking info, we were able to bring together past and present data to inform the placement of the new parkland routes.
Materials in Use
We didn’t want hard materials to define the landscape. Instead, we wanted any new interventions to feel part of it, like an old track that nature has slowly colonised. We spent a lot of time trialling different materials that could be obtained within a 10-mile radius of the park.
Plants in Use
Our vision for Dyrham Park was for the landscapes to feel organic, loved and discovered. For the wider landscape, we focused on integration, sourcing seed from an adjacent down which had the same soil conditions and encouraging nature to soften, colonise and evolve.
Within the Old Lodge area, once a farmstead in the middle of the park, we aimed not to over-design, but to define spaces for rangers and volunteers to take ownership of, and allow nature to creep in.
