Ardmore House
Kinsale, Co. Cork
A steeply falling rear garden turned into three usable terraces, with the level change carried by stone rather than hidden by planting.
- Garden size
- 340 m²
- Project type
- Modern
- Investment
- €62,000 – €68,000
- Programme
- 9 weeks
The brief
A 1970s house with a garden that dropped nearly two metres from the back door to the boundary. The owners had lived there eleven years and had never once eaten outside.
What we did
The fall was the whole problem and the whole opportunity. Rather than fight it with a single retaining wall and one flat lawn, we cut three terraces, each sized for a different use — dining at the house, lawn in the middle, a quiet seat at the far end where the evening sun lands last.
The retaining is local limestone laid dry-faced on a reinforced core, so it reads as a garden wall rather than as engineering. Steps are generous and shallow: 150mm risers and 400mm treads, wide enough to sit on.
Planting is deliberately restrained near the house and looser as you move down the garden, so the terraces feel progressively more informal the further you get from the kitchen door.
Outcome
The family now eat outside from April to October. The lowest terrace, which the owners expected to be the least used, turned out to be where they spend most evenings.
The layout, before and after
The site survey and the finished design, drawn to the same scale on the same boundaries.
