The Siddeley Solution

Randle Siddeley Limited was established 40 years ago and now works globally with a team of 80.  Their reputation for transformation is deserved, and never more so than during the pandemic.  Once our homes were places in which we ate and slept, but since we’ve been largely confined to them, they have become our universe.  For those lucky enough to have outside spaces, Randle Siddeley has been offering design solutions to transform them into personally styled oases, with pools or hot tubs, water features, lighting, imaginative, theatrical garden furniture, sculpture, ornaments and innovative al fresco dining ideas.

This summer, with Simon Burvill, Randle collaborated with Gaze Burvill to design Meander 3, after they spotted Nina Campbell’s beautifully upholstered three-seater love seat at the Chelsea Design Centre.  It’s the perfect set-up for a sociable, contemporary Ménage à Trois, with a table in the middle for the champagne Magnum.  It was extraordinarily difficult to master the chair’s balance, but the expertise of Gaze Burvill’s craftsmen prevailed to create its thick flared bends and clever demountable system. The eye-catching design in prime grade oak creates a self-contained and delightfully unusual seating area.

The Meander 3 caught the approving eye of RHS judges at the last Chelsea Flower Show when it was already shortlisted for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show Product of the Year Award. For Randle, it represents the perfect antidote to our hectic digital age, designed for non-confrontational but close conversations and convivial debate.

Always known for dramatic talking points, Randle and his team placed five textured glass shards by Andrew Moor in a Hong Kong garden, against the backdrop of Discovery Bay. Seeing how they added instant theatre, they designed one into a central London garden, where it was equally as dramatic and elegant.  The highest shard rises to about two metres and each one suggests a beautiful sea-cold flame or giant blade of translucent grass, thrusting up towards the sky and evoking immediate curiosity.

In Wentworth, they were commissioned to re-landscape an entire six-acre garden. It contained an ill-construed water feature, comprising an unattractive stone lily pad. They saw an opportunity for this to be a theatrical focus and collaborated with David Harber to design a single Teardrop.  The elegant curves are a wickerwork of stainless steel, painted dark blue inside with a skirt of water around it.  In sunlight, the Teardrop’s reflective surface turns the pond a mystical deep blue and after dark lighting from within makes the Teardrop appear to shimmer, suspended above water. This is a formidable centrepiece transitioning effortlessly between night and day.

www.randlesiddeley.co.uk