We have been working with St Mary’s School in Colchester since 2014 when we designed a new garden courtyard for their Lower School premises. This month sees the start of an exciting project to transform the frontage of their Senior School site.

The Senior School is in a prominent position on the Lexden Road leading into Colchester. It is in a conservation area and the site has several wonderful features, in particular some fine mature trees subject to tree preservation orders and a listed castellated building called The Turrets.

The school acquired its main building, formerly a house, in 1923, and expanded into The Turrets in the 1970s. As the school has grown new buildings and extensions have been added. Our redesign of the frontage spaces links together these elements and transforms the public face the school shows to visitors and passers-by. We have also redesigned the entrances, parking and routes for pedestrians and vehicles to make the site safer and easier to get around. A third strand to our work is improving the variety of what is planted and the conditions for it to grow and thrive.

All this has been achieved while respecting the history of the site.

Just before Christmas we were delighted to get planning approval for the improvements and preliminary site clearance has just got under way. The next phase will see re-organisation of the entrances along Lexden Road along with new railings and gateways. The main phase of work, planned for the summer holidays, improves the parking, roads and paths, and features a new planting scheme to showcase the fine buildings and setting of the site.

The image above is one of our visualisations of the completed scheme which was part of our planning application. It shows The Turrets with its new landscape surroundings.