New riverside garden planned for The Hepworth Wakefield

The Hepworth is unveiling a new gardens project. People can come to the gallery and vote on their favourite from four designs.
Jane Marriott deputy director — The Hepworth is unveiling a new gardens project. People can come to the gallery and vote on their favourite from four designs. Jane Marriott deputy director

The Hepworth Wakefield has unveiled designs for a riverside “sanctuary” in the grounds of the gallery.

And you can have your say on what it will look like.

Two garden sheds featuring four designs by leading international landscape designers and architects have been placed on the land.

People are invited to visit to the gallery and give feedback on their favourites.

Jane Marriott, The Hepworth’s deputy director said: “We want a space that is both a sanctuary away from the business of life but also that celebrates the architecture of David Chipperfield [designer of The Hepworth] and the 19th century mill buildings.

“It is very difficult to imagine what the gardens will look like unless you stand in the space where they are going to be.

“This is for the people of Wakefield and visitors to the gallery to have their say in what this wonderful garden will look like.

“We want people to come to have a look at what the garden designers have suggested and to give their thoughts, let us know what they think about what works and doesn’t work.

“The judging panel will then bring their expertise, however it is the public’s chance to tell us what they want.”

Judges short-listed the four designs by Christopher Bradley Hole and Brita von Schoenaich, Tom Stuart-Smith, Cleve West, and Peter Wirtz, who between them have won 16 gold medals at the Royal horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show.

They will use your feedback to help select their winning design, which will be announced in the new year to coincide with Visit England’s Year of the English Garden and The Hepworth’s fifth anniversary.

The gallery will then launch a fundraising campaign so it can start work on the project.

David Liddiment, chairman of The Hepworth Wakefield Trust and the garden judging panel, said: “A passion for garden is evident throughout Yorkshire, where I grew up, and we hope that people will be as excited about the  notion of a public garden as part of the riverside site as we are.”

Simon Wallis, Hepworth Director; Jane Marriott; Chris Blundell of the Royal Horticultural Society; Edwina Sassoon of the Royal Academy of Arts; Anna Pavord, author and writer; Christopher Woodward, director of The Garden Museum; Wakefield Council leader Coun Peter Box; Dr Evelyn Stern of David Chipperfield Architects and Michael Ziff, The Hepworth Wakefield Trustee.

New riverside garden planned for The Hepworth Wakefield - and you can have your say