In December 2006 the Arundel Castle Trust commissioned Isabel and Julian Bannerman to execute their design for a new garden at Arundel Castle. The chosen site, part of the walled garden, had been a car park since the 1950’s whilst the rest of the walled garden is a productive fruit flower and vegetable garden run organically. Taking what documentation there was about the garden built in the early 1600’s at Arundel House, London, for the 14th Earl of Arundel Thomas and his wife Alathea, the Bannerman’s pieced together an idea for a formal garden with many references to the work Inigo Jones is thought to have done there and elsewhere… much of which is known only from details in the portraits by Daniel Mytens in 1618 of the couple. From these portraits we know that there seems to have been a Pergola and before it a fountain, which is the first thing to be seen upon entering the new garden. Given a sloping site it was possible to make the garden on two levels with a huge oak Pergola looking over the lower terrace and a cascade of water falling from the upper level. To give further dramatic effect the bottom end of the garden was built up into a ‘rocky’ mountainside upon which the most important building, Oberon’s Palace from a set design by Inigo Jones, is perched. In here they re-created the astonishing ‘Dancing Crown Fountain’ – a Renaissance water trick whereby a golden crown rides magically upon a powerful jet of water. Now this can be seen at Hanham Court also. In this building there is exquisite shell work and in the Park Temple, a totally original building using Deer Antlers and oak, the walls are lined with moss and bark another timeless idea taken from garden history and updated. The planting, given the gentle seaside microclimate, is a bold and exotic use of sub tropicals and gorgeous colour, transporting, and unlike anything the Bannerman’s have done before. Writing in the Telegraph Saturday review Mary keen declared this a “stroke of genius”, and the buildings “scholarly and witty”.