This one's been on my radar to visit since I first went to Harlow in 2010. It did not disappoint.
Also, just for once, all the key information is on a sign by the front gate.
Sir Frederick Gibberd (1908-1984) was a British architect whose most famous works include Heathrow Airport terminals 1 and 2, Chrisp Street Market in Poplar, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and the London Central Mosque. After WW2 he was given the job of planning a new town at Harlow in Essex, and set about cycling round its lanes and fields to decide where all the key services and neighbourhoods should go. After it was finished he decided to move in, buying up a nasty bungalow on the eastern edge of town and adding an extension he was much prouder of. The gardens he filled with sculpture, just as he'd decorated the public spaces of his new town with numerous postmodern chunks of metal and stone. Initially the house was just a weekend retreat but eventually he moved in full time, and this is what you're going to see at The Gibberd Garden.
It nearly all got sold off in a tangle over death duties. Thankfully a local landowner (who'd made a killing from newtown-isation) stepped in and bought it, ostensibly as a stopgap until a group of Harlow residents raised enough money to buy it off him. It's still owned by the Gibberd Garden Trust and is run entirely by volunteers, other than a couple of professional gardeners who come in a couple of times a week. 14 acres is a lot to keep under control but they do a marvellous job, as you can see if you drop by on a Sunday afternoon (house and garden) or a Wednesday afternoon (just the garden). They used to additionally open on Saturdays but that's now reserved for weddings and events, partly because it's a gorgeous venue but mainly because they need the extra dosh.
If you're driving it's not far from M11 junction 7a (Sir Fred was livid when he discovered the M11 was going up the eastern side of Harlow, having gone to enormous effort to locate all its industry to the west). Otherwise the best way in is probably via Harlow Mill station, which has an hourly service on Sundays and is just under a mile away. Unfortunately there's no direct link (Sir Fred didn't live on the outskirts for its accessibility) so it's a fair detour via pavements, or less of a detour by cutting across Marigolds Recreation Ground, or a tad more direct by following a footpath across some meadows beside the railway. The latter can get quite muddy in the later stages. I walked up to the Stort Navigation and followed its towpath most of the way and I do not regret my choice.
The gardens aren't expensive to visit. Just £5 gets you in (which seems very fair), plus an extra £2 if you want to poke around inside the house (which if it's Sunday, yes you do). The nice lady with the tablet may then upsell you a map for £1, but that's all for the best because it includes details of the 90 sculptures dotted around the premises. This can be used to set up what is in effect an artistic orienteering challenge, plus it doubles as a full colour record of all the pieces after you get home. Mr Deer, by Derek Hutchison. Hinge, by Paul Mason. Torso, by Myfanwy Shrapnel. Norman font, from deconsecrated church in Leamington Spa. Head of Frederick Gibberd, by Gerda Rubinstein. Just a dogend in the ashtray of life, by David Fried. Don't expect classical poses, expect something more intriguingly modern.
Sculpture density is at its highest close to the house and drops off the further away you walk. The terrace is chock full, the entrance to the house well decorated, and elsewhere the lawns and clearings act as 'rooms' to best display a work or two. The collection includes a broad menagerie, dozens of abstract forms and occasionally something distinctly human. When number 56 says 'Woman with kid' that is indeed a baby goat she's holding. Just occasionally a sculpture is included that Sir Frederick and his wife wouldn't have recognised, for example the two silvery vac-packs called Bifurcation Inflation in the lower field, but mostly they're all handpicked. Largest of all is a pair of stone columns straight out of a Roman temple, or in this case Coutts Bank in the Strand (because Gibberd had been hired to update their HQ and acquired part of the original).
The garden's centrepiece is an ornamental pool on a perpendicular alignment from the patio. The only sculpture here is Bird by Hebe Cornerford, which I thought looked angularly familiar and yes, an identicalbird appears in the Water Gardens in Harlow town centre. One for the public and one for me was Sir Fred's rationale here. I bet he never saw it with a dragonfly resting on the bird's nose though, so I win there. Beyond the pool is a pyramidal gazebo with a staircase down to a grotto underneath, and by now you may well be thinking "ooh I'd love to have lived here". There's even a castle.
It's not a proper castle, more a scrambly folly, but it does have a (suspiciously circular) moat and a functional drawbridge. I think I was the first one across it yesterday so I had to duck through the gate to avoid a dewy spider's web. To reach the central stockade requires climbing a motte and then clambering up four rings of timber steps, which is sufficiently fun to engage a child bored of looking at sculptures and also enough of a challenge that one silver-haired pensioner looked chuffed to have reached the top. The stream which feeds the moat is the Pinsey Brook, a minor tributary of the Stort which also happens to mark the Harlow boundary because Sir Frederick chose to live right on the very very edge of his new town.
Getting inside the house requires a timed ticket, with access limited to half hour slots starting at 3pm. You won't see the domestic heart, only the showier extension, but it's a set of spaces with great character. The main sitting room has a central leather sofa and garden views in all directions, plus a variety of Gibberdian memorabilia around the walls. Most are quite tasteful, although perhaps not the shelves loaded with 50 pairs of Staffordshire ceramic dogs (Sir Frederick gave instructions they should never be moved). Elements of his architectural life are also displayed here, including scale models of Harlow's Civic Centre and of The Lawn, Britain's first residential tower block. I enjoyed scrutinising his bookshelves (full set of Pevsner county guides, tick, umpteen volumes on urban planning, tick, four copies of his own book on Town Design, obvs), and my special thanks to the volunteers who did the opening talk and answered all my questions.
Most visitors seem to gravitate towards the tea room in the barn towards the end of their visit, where goodies include ice cream, scones and the obligatory cake. There's also a small exhibition space at one end of the house which is currently occupied by a local artist's lumberjacky landscapes. Sir Frederick would no doubt be delighted to see his home and garden preserved and enjoyed, mainly by those whose hometown he strove so carefully to design. But as for the chunky newbuild homes currently encroaching across the adjacent fields towards his once-secluded front door - the very modern neighbourhood of Gilden Park - I suspect he'd be far less impressed.
