At our April Meeting Cherith Lowry gave us a wonderful talk about Sir Frederick Gibberd who owned and designed the Gibberd Garden in Harlow. The garden is open to the public from April to the Autumn on Wednesday and Sunday afternoon’s and sometimes by special arrangement. It is famous for its many sculptures of which we saw many pictures.
Frederick Gibberd was born in Coventry and trained as an Architect. He Married Dorothea and set up his businesses in London. We saw pictures of the many properties he designed, mainly blocks and estates of flats. He became known as the ‘flats architect’ a title he disliked. But he also designed commercial properties including terminal 1, 2 & 3 of Heathrow Airport, Coutts bank in London, Liverpool Cathedral, London Central Mosque in Hyde Park, Orwell Bridge in Suffolk.
In 1946 the Government was commissioning new Towns to be built to accommodate the growing number of people from London. Originally Sir Gibberd was going to be master planner for Hemel Hempstead but lost out to another better known architect and was instead given Harlow. At the time Harlow was lots of little hamlets. The M11 motorway was planned to go up the west side of these Hamlets and so Sir Gibberd designed the area for all the industrial areas to be on the West near the motorway. Unfortunately the M11 was repositioned and runs up the East side so all the traffic has to leave the motorway and cross Harlow. The first residents were moved from London to Harlow in 1949. People from Tottenham were moved out to Harlow.
In 1956 Sir Gibberds Architect business was going well, he had 2 practices with employees and he only had to work 2 days a week. So Sir Gibberd turned his attention to his interest of designing a garden. He found a property in Harlow with land. He had originally intended to demolish the house and rebuild it, but the Council wouldn’t allow this so he designed the garden around the existing house. The garden in fact faces north, on a downward slope and on heavy clay. He put in 2 ponds and a waterfall but the garden is prone to floods.
When Sir Gibberd died he left his house and Garden to the Town but his family contested the will and after 10 years of court battles the judge ordered the property to be sold. Many of the paintings and sculptures but the Gibberd Garden Trust was formed and managed to raise the funds to purchase the property with the help of the National Lottery. It is maintained now with volunteer gardeners aged 60 to 98 and opens to the public to visit.
We may arrange a visit to the garden in due course for our members.
