Chelsea Flower Show
It was an honour to be asked to be part of the team to build the RHS Chelsea Monument Garden in 2025.
Designed by Max Parker-Smith.
with Hardwood Landscapes as the principal contractor.
'Moments of Reflection Garden'
Max Parker-Smith designed the garden with many different features highlighting endangered crafts. I was approached to build the dry stone wall elements plus a moongate window.
With my team of myself plus two, we managed to work our way through 16 tons of stone to bring Max's vision to life.
Below are some of the key features within the design.
The lunkey and the moongate window were prepped off-site with each individual piece of stone numbered to ensure everything fitted together perfectly and more importantly it had to be done quickly.
There were several large boulders throughout the walls.
The main wall circled the Monument - a feature at Chelsea Hospital.
It was an ambitious project and required many different trades people all on site at the same time and all pushing to complete their section to the highest possible level. We were often tripping over each other but the team spirit remained strong.
Undoubtedly one of the most stressful moments was when I split the stone for squeeze stile - a video of that moment can been seen on the link below.
Included a lunkey in the dry stone wall, a lunkey is an opening to enable small animals to pass through.
Using large boulders in the dry stone wall gives it a strong focal element.
The Moongate Window - click the link to see how I built it.
