This website documents the story of a special new-build project combined with an historic garden restoration in the Undercliff, a uniquely favoured area of the Isle of Wight, in the UK.

The site is the two-acre lake and walled garden complex of ‘Old Park’, part of the original pleasure grounds of a significant Victorian marine residence dating from 1832. Early last century this important designed landscape was split from its mansion house and since became disused — a miniature ‘Lost Garden of Heligan’ in a magical seaside setting.

Planning permission was given in May 2002 for a new build private house at Old Park as part of a package to allow the restoration of the landscape to take place. This restoration, including dredging the lake, and recreating the walled garden was to be carried out within two years, and was a planning condition on the site as a whole. Now complete, the site is open on demand and without charge for schools, special needs groups and for charity fund raising.