The tiny wooden gate into Berrywell feels like a portal into another world. Hidden in the foothills of the Pennines, the cosy larch-clad cabin with its natural swimming pond is bookable on Airbnb and guests write lovingly in the visitors’ book about the peace and tranquillity of the place.
The secluded plot was offered for auction in 2019. “When I first went to view it, I was blown away by its potential,” says owner Will Tomson. The perished wooden cabin had previously been a holiday home and the fifth of an acre of long grass was enclosed by a ring of shrubs and trees. There were no neighbours and a big, open sky.
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A garden designer with a background in ecology, Will has worked in gardens across the UK, Japan and USA. He was keen to return to his roots in South Yorkshire, and had a clear vision for what he wanted to do with the space. “I’d only ever had an allotment of my own before, so this would give me somewhere to experiment with plants and make a haven for wildlife. I thought I could rough it out living in the old hut while building a new cabin, then rent the new one on Airbnb to generate funds to rebuild the original one.”
With the help of friends and family, Will built a beautiful new larch-clad cabin, created the natural swimming pond from scratch and established the wildlife garden around it. He loved the idea of the pond as an ecosystem that would also be “swimmable”. Conscious that larger bodies of water maintain steadier temperatures, he made the pond as large as the space would allow, and keen to make the build as sustainable as possible, he made it rectangular, to most efficiently use the pond liner.
Dense, woodland-edge and hedgerow-inspired planting in the wider garden offers plentiful food and shelter for wildlife
The central swimming area is bordered by a regeneration zone – a submerged, gravel-filled shelf with planting, which acts as a biological filter. Will implemented a low-tech, air-lift bubble-pump system pioneered by David Pagan Butler of Organic Pools for filtration, whereby the bubbles draw the water through the gravel, and beneficial bacteria and microbes on the gravel’s large surface area keep it clean.
“Like any area of the garden, you do need to get in and garden the pond,” explains Will. But it is a meditative process: “Dragonflies dive past your head and frogs hop in alongside you.” Toads also happily use the pool for breeding each year.
The planting around the pool has a wild and meadowy feel, so that as you swim, you feel immersed in your surroundings
Will’s newly built wooden cabin looks onto the pond, and wraps around a large black walnut tree (Juglans nigra), almost hugging the trunk. “It was inspired by my time in Japan,” says Will. “I wanted it to feel like the cabin belonged to the garden, rather than the other way around.” The cabin was constructed using ground screws, to not damage the tree’s roots.
When developing the planting around the space, Will was keen to establish a “complexity of habitat”, thinking about the full lifecycle of insects and birds and providing what’s needed for them to feed, breed and overwinter.
Woodland-edge and hedgerow-inspired habitat is particularly useful for this, with its dense three-dimensionality, offering plentiful food and shelter. Will began by adding to the outer perimeter of the garden with new shrubs and trees, such as Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Acer griseum for autumn colour. The already mature hawthorn and privet are left unclipped, creating a good relay of flowers around the boundary.
The main areas of planting around the pool are designed to have a wild and meadowy feel so that as you swim, the wiry stems tower above you and flowers can be viewed from below. “I began with an intermingled matrix of Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea ‘Heidebraut’ and Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster,’” says Will, who then dotted through perennials such as ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), Veronicastrum and Solidago.
Self-seeders such as Verbascum, foxgloves and Hesperis also play an important role. Keen to provide food sources for caterpillars, Will allowed four or five clumps of self-seeded common ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris) within the borders to encourage the cinnabar moth, along with rosebay willowherb, a key food plant for the elephant hawk moth caterpillar. He throws seeds of viper’s bugloss, corncockle and wild carrot into the borders, editing out the seedlings as necessary in spring.
A small vegetable bed completes the idyllic picture, with fruit trees woven through the planting. A stay at Berrywell, swimming in the pool, picking fruit from the trees and watching life in the garden, would leave any gardener feeling truly nourished, body and soul.
In brief
- Name Berrywell.
- What Cabin retreat set within a secluded wildlife garden with a natural swimming pond. Where South Yorkshire.
- Size Fifth of an acre.
- Soil Loam on shale with seams of clay.
- Climate Temperate.
- Hardiness zone USDA 8b.
Useful information
To book a stay at Will’s cabin, search ‘Berrywell Sheffield’ at airbnb.co.uk . Find out more about Will’s work at creativecultivation.co.uk