
Abbey Orchard House on Pondwicks Close
(Picture: Savills)“Wow. What a house,” says Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud as he approaches the zigzag-shaped, Sedum-roofed Abbey Orchard House in a 2017 episode, complete after 10 painstaking years.
Accessed by crossing a moat-like water feature, the single-storey house is built on the grounds of the Abbey of St Albans and is, as McCloud put it, “part Japanese, part medieval cloister, part Roman villa in influence”.