Paul Robinson

Hi, I’m Paul, a Senior Designer at Bestall & Co. My role is to create, produce, develop and oversee the designs for our projects. My job starts as soon as we receive your garden survey and design brief and finishes once we have delivered you your completed garden. By this time, I’m sure I’ll be very familiar to you!  

As a designer I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that the concept stage of the design is my favourite part of the process, I love how every garden is completely different from the last and I enjoy the challenge of squeezing every drop of potential from each site. But really the whole journey to creating a new garden is very engaging and there are always lots of highs along the way as well the occasional lows. As a garden designer I love how you’re constantly acquiring new knowledge on such a wide field of disciplines there is always something new to learn. The most rewarding part of the job is visiting the garden a year or so after completion, to see your vision come to life for real is an extremely satisfying experience. 

I’ve always felt very connect to nature and the outdoors and whilst the urban landscape constantly changes, I’ve always felt a great sense of comfort that nature and the landscape has remained the same for centuries. Whilst I like designing landscapes of all kinds, I’m particularly inspired by working on older more historical properties that allow me to indulge my passion for history. For me the best gardens are the ones that offer understated, effortless beauty with a feel of timelessness I think if this can be achieved you are well on the way to creating a great garden. 

Away from work I am of course a keen gardener and I’m busy working on and improving my own garden. History is also a passion of mine, I always have an historical audio book of some kind playing in the car whilst im traveling to and from gardens and I often spend holidays dragging my wife around the local historical sites. Walks in nature and sport of all kinds are also other interests. 

If I wasn’t a garden designer, I would love to be an archaeologist or perhaps involved in historical restoration of some kind.

I would get Matt Smith to play me in a movie as I was once mistaken for him when out in London whilst wearing a tweed jacket (apparently, I looked like a dead ringer for him as Dr Who).

Did you hear about the gardener who went crazy?
He was hearing voices in his shed!

Did you know that when Gertrude Jekyll was commissioned to design the garden and grounds at Lindisfarne Castle, they replaced the lead shot from shot gun cartridges with wildflowers seeds and fired them at the steep grassy slopes below the castle. Probably not a practise to be recommended in the 21^st century! 

If I could three things to a desert island with me, they would be: My wife, a case of champagne and an eco-friendly mega yacht.