Gidleigh Park Hotel, Resource and Study Centre Project

This project recreates a lost working garden with the aim of providing fresh produce and cut flowers for the hotel and to provide a Study Centre in a new flexible and open-plan building which has facilities to carry out lectures and demonstrations for a wide range of activities related to the hotel and Dartmoor.

The garden is designed to closely reflect the original historic layout with a central service avenue, and flexible planting beds on either side. It is contained entirely within the historic garden boundary, and will link to the rest of the Estate and its gardens using new and existing paths and steps and with a new level main pedestrian access to the hotel. Discreet and flexible outdoor spaces integrate the new building into its landscape.

The new Study Centre building replaces an existing large services building. It is timber clad with an exposed timber structure, and slate and glass roof which runs down to eaves level to provide plant covered pergolas and sheltered working areas. It is set at the same ground level and ridge height as existing demolished services building.

The restoration of the former kitchen gardens reinstates an important missing historic element to the hotel, regenerating an area of the grounds that is losing its identity and potentially threatened by the presence of Japanese Knotweed. The Study Centre, integrated with the restored kitchen garden, creates a productive environment for learning and the improved arrangement of paths and intermediate areas of landscape will bring existing areas of the gardens into better focus.