The Gibberd Garden

Frederick Gibberd was an English architect and landscape designer. His notable buildings include the Roman Catholic cathedral in Liverpool (Paddy's wigwam), Didcot Power station and he was consultant architect planner for the Harlow New Town development.

I'm not convinced that Gibberd can be blamed for modern Harlow. I mean can you blame him that it doesn't have a specialist bookshop? No I think not. Harlow was born of Harlow "old Town" and several local villages. The idea of communities was to be enforced by the small shopping centres such as Bush Fair, the Stow and Staple Tye. Of course Gibberd can't escape all blame, some of the building materials were deeply depressing.

Gibberd's water garden I believe is still there, I haven't been to the new shopping centre built on the spot called The Water Gardens.

I suspect most people in Harlow have never heard of Gibberd and their one association of the name maybe as they head out of Harlow towards Sheering. On the outskirts of the town is a brown tourist sign pointing to the Gibberd Garden.

I have never been and this afternoon I thought ooh I know!

The garden is a series of rooms and contains many sculptures. Some of the architectural elements were salvaged from his reconstruction of Coutt's Bank in London.

I didn't take many photos. All photos Panasonic GF1 2ommf1.7.

There are two ways into the garden. I chose the wrong one and was initially disappointed.





































Not many photos eh OC :D There is a cafe that I didn't use. Not a garden of high quality planting but one worth a visit if you're in the area.