Shotton Steelworks, surviving as former office buildings (e.g. nprn 412779), is located on the north bank of the river Dee a few miles to the north-west of Chester. It is notable for the survival of the layout, structure and much of the major planting of a formal garden and forecourt designed by the distinguished landscape architect Brenda Colvin (1897-1981). It was designed to complement the adjacent office buildings and form an integrated design with a particular aim to provide recreational space for the office workers.
The garden was constructed in about 1951 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, with putting green, bowling green and swimming pool. Brenda Colvin was commissioned (through Sylvia Crowe with whom she shared an office for several years) to design the garden and forecourt.
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).
Sources:
Cadw 2012: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd PGW(C)76(FLT)
MERL 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'
RCAHMW, 13 July 2022
