PGW(C)77(FLT)

Shotton Steelworks Garden  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Flintshire  

Sealand  

331289  

369442  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Formal garden and forecourt  

About 1951  

Registered for the survival of the layout, formal structure and much of the major planting of a formal garden and forecourt designed by the distinguished landscape architect Brenda Colvin (1897-1981) to complement the adjacent office buildings and form an integrated design. A particular aim of the garden was to provide recreational space for the office workers. The history of the garden is bound up with that of the steelworks, which was established at Shotton in 1896 by John Summers & Sons, based in Stalybridge, near Manchester. The general office building adjacent to the gardens was built in 1907 (LB: 85247) and by 1910 there were 3,000 employees. This rose to 10,000 in the 1950s. A conjoined pair of office and support buildings (LB: 87629) was constructed in about 1950 at a time of great expansion of the steelworks. A garden already existed on the site, probably laid out in the 1930s with a lawn and paths leading to a sunken garden. A plaque on a stone pedestal in the centre of the sunken garden recorded the presentation of the garden and recreation facilities by Henry Summers to the Headquarters Office staff, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1935. Photographs show the sunken garden, and a putting green and bowling green laid out on either side of the central axis. A swimming pool was located at the far end of the garden behind a high brick wall, punctuated with porthole openings. In the 1950s, Brenda Colvin was commissioned (through Sylvia Crowe with whom she shared an office for a number of years) to design the garden and forecourt at Shotton. The garden and forecourt were designed to complement the office buildings around the forecourt and in particular the pair of buildings on its north side. The buildings, along with a garage and a laboratory building, were integrated into the design, with the entrance to the garden, under the arch, between the pair of buildings focused on the central axis of the garden. Colvin incorporated the existing garden features into her designs. Her planting plan proposed extensive tree and shrub planting, with trees planted to soften and screen buildings and parking areas. Box hedging was introduced to edge the borders of the forecourt and borders planted with roses, flowering shrubs and evergreens. Colvin’s plans survive and are held at the Landscape Institute archive at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), University of Reading. The plans are dated 1958 and Brenda Colvin’s notebook records the work as ‘project no.420 John Summers & Sons – Steelworks – through S Crowe – Shotton, Chester. Further landscape work was undertaken at the Shotton Steel Works site in 1970-71 by Colvin & Moggridge (recorded in Colvin’s notebook as job 570, extension for 420). Significant View: Along the central axis of the garden. Sources: Cadw 2012: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd PGW(C)76(FLT) Setting out plan and planting plan for a property at Shotton, Chester for client John Summers & Sons Ltd (job 420) Cylinder of drawings AR COL DO1/2/7 Folder relating to Shotton car Park (Job 570) AR COL A/5/3 Welsh Historic Gardens Trust Bulletin (Autumn 2017) 'John Summers Garden Shotton'