To reach Hillside, in a small valley near Bath in Somerset, you must wind your way down a narrow track with mixed hedges and wild clematis either side, diving deep into the undulating terrain, leaving the hustle and bustle of everyday life behind.
Join us for the premiere of a new documentary on Dan Pearson and Hillside
- Join us on Sunday 19 January 2025 at 8pm GMT for the premiere of our exclusive, in-depth video tour of Hillside, guided by Dan.
When designer Dan Pearson and his partner and studio director Huw Morgan moved here in 2010, a small house with plenty of land was their ideal. They knew the area, but considered the valley too cold and damp, until one captivating visit on a sunny February day. By October, the deal was done.
It was a brave move. They took on 20 acres with a damp farmhouse decked in swirly carpets, ramshackle tin farm buildings, a piggery and rundown vegetable garden, and barbed-wire fences right up to the house. But Dan and Huw were moved by the landscape – a patchwork of fields, hedges and woodland, nestled in the deep folds of the countryside, and set in silence. The land was complex, varying from one end to the other, with streams, wet ditches, pasture and woodland. These, they felt, were opportunities rather than difficulties.
You may also like
- Dan Pearson's timeless garden for Juergen Teller
- Dan Pearson's reimagining of Lowther Castle
- The Garden Museum's Dan Pearson designed courtyard
Dan is one of the most gifted designers in the world, an astonishingly knowledgeable plantsman and gardener with great sensibility. His design studio is at the top of its game and life is busy. Taking on this project was challenging, but the couple saw Hillside as a place in which they could immerse themselves and create something deep and meaningful in a considered and authentic way.
They immediately got rid of the barbed-wire fences, moved the fence lines back and removed brambles. Observing little ecologies, they began to understand what they had. Everything was on a steep slope, so they gently recontoured some land, making it flow and unite with the countryside beyond, and levelled the area around the house to make it more practical.
The main garden is now on an axis with the house, meaning the beds run along the slope rather than up and down, with planting hugging the contours and spilling out onto the curving paths. In everything Dan and Huw did, the dialogue with the landscape was most important.
Self-sufficiency was key, so they doubled the size of the vegetable garden and planted an orchard. They repaired hedges, planted trees and oversowed the surrounding pasture and meadows with seed to enrich their diversity. And all the time they observed and took in the sense of place.
This wasn’t a garden where they were just going to collect plants. Dan knew he could tell only one story here, and that story should be driven by the views and the landscape. Everything else was subservient. Discipline and restraint became an important part of the process – particularly hard for someone with a curious mind and an appetite for plants.
Plants came along from their garden in London, each one with promise and memories – but things behaved differently here. Hemerocallis altissima, which was tall and wandy in Peckham, put on muscle and flowered its heart out. Hellebores, instead of struggling, grew like cabbages. Testing the language of plants, the ornamental garden became an evolving experiment to find the right palette and the right plant in harmony with the site.
Dan held trials of grasses, sanguisorbas, asters, peonies, tulips and three bonkers years of dahlias, getting rid of things they didn’t want, and increasing the ones they did. Forty asters down to ten, 20 sanguisorbas to a handful, and all miscanthus rejected for being ornamental, except for two. These tests went on for seven years before the trial garden was dismantled and the new beds were formed. The flower garden at Hillside now sits to one side of the house, with large, informal sweeps of perennials leading the eye to the fields and landscape beyond.
Below is a wet seam between two patches of ground, which particularly intrigued Dan, being totally different to its surroundings. By clearing brambles and weakening the rampant hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) to stop it seeding, they made way for wild angelica and primroses. Discovering these niches fascinates Dan, who finds the hinterland between the ornamental garden and wild most interesting. The newly created pond sits across from here, nestled in with marginal plantings, surrounded by meadows, totally comfortable in its setting and teeming with life.
Nearer the house, by Dan’s studio, is what was once an old concrete milking yard, where Clematis ‘My Angel’ scrambles over a tin shed. Eryngium paniculatum sits to one side, and self-seeded alliums, Dianthus carthusianorum and Lathyrus sylvestris scramble through at ground level. A huge rectangular 18th-century granite trough adds structure to this space.
A bank of tussocky grasses studded with wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare) separate you from the upper level. From here, you head up the terrace to the herb garden – close to the house for picking – where a huge Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ swallows up a chair, and a narrow-leaved bay laurel anchors the corner of the house.
Join us for the premiere of a new documentary on Dan Pearson and Hillside
- Join us on Sunday 19 January 2025 at 8pm GMT for the premiere of our exclusive, in-depth video tour of Hillside, guided by Dan.
Huw’s vegetable garden of several rectangular raised beds lies alongside, bursting with produce. His journey at Hillside has been a personal one of food, discovery and memories, probing deep into his childhood, when his family grew vegetables in copious quantities. Now with space, he could immerse himself, holding trials of aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes and beans, using seeds from smaller independent producers, and growing unusual varieties. He cooks and uses everything, trying new
and old recipes, dealing with gluts, canning, freezing and pickling, and creating his own world.
The experiments go on at Hillside, and the dynamic plant communities, especially the self-seeded ones, are fascinating to watch develop. The Sand Garden is Dan’s latest venture, planted on 150-200mm of coarse sand, with ballotas, santolinas, salvias, verbascums, morinas, Genista tinctoria and a whole range of Mediterranean zone plants in tones of grey and green. Surprisingly, this creates no tension with the landscape beyond, just perfect harmony – sheer testament to Dan’s ability to get things right.
Hillside is complex, intensely considerate, hugely authentic; a masterpiece in connecting a garden to the landscape, while creating a space that is moving, sympathetic and intricately exciting.
8 key plants from Hillside
Digitalis ferruginea ‘Gigantea’
Long, slender spikes hold dozens of tightly packed, tubular, rusty apricot-coloured flowers, each one intricately veined on the inside. A short-lived perennial for sun or part shade. Flowers June to July. Height and spread: 1.5m x 20cm. AGM*. RHS H7†.
Phlomis samia
A clump-forming evergreen perennial with felty, grey-green, lance-shaped leaves on upright stems that support whorls of hooded, light pinky-purple flowers. Enjoys full sun. Flowers June to August. 1m x 1m. RHS H5.
Salvia sclarea var. turkestaniana ‘Vatican White’
Large rosettes of deeply veined, felty, grey-green leaves hold multi-branched spikes of pure-white flowers. The whole plant is aromatic. Self-seeds freely in full sun. Biennial, flowering in its second year. Flowers June to September, 1.5m x 50cm. RHS H5.
Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder’
Clump-forming perennial with erect, branching stems held high above serrated, pinnate leaves, bearing long, cylindrical spikes of burgundy flowers. 1.2m x 70cm. RHS H7.
Santolina etrusca
Compact, evergreen sub-shrub that makes a neat, rounded bush of finely cut, grey-green, aromatic leaves. Cream-white pincushion flowers from July to August. Needs full sun. 60cm x 60cm. RHS H5.
Eryngium variifolium
Makes attractive rosettes of silver-veined leaves and sturdy, upright stems of grey-blue flowers in July to August surrounded by spiny, silvery bracts. Prefers full sun. 50cm x 40cm. RHS H4, USDA 5a-9b.
Gladiolus ‘Ruby’
A rich ruby-red gladiolus with hooded flowers from May to June that are dusky on the outside and darker on the inside, and clumps of grey-green, grass-like leaves. Needs full sun. 40cm x 20cm. RHS H4, USDA 7a-10b.
Teucrium hircanicum ‘Paradise Delight’
Robust perennial with violet-blue flowers in summer carried on upright, tapered spires. 70cm x 50cm. RHS H5.
*Holds an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.
†Hardiness ratings given where available.
