Westonbirt, Gloucestershire
The site of the equestrian centre is part of the Westonbirt Estate, a Grade 1 listed landscape in Gloucestershire. The development includes stables for forty horses, indoor and outdoor riding schools, a belvedere for entertainment and view, the clients’ house and a grooms lodge, all of which are embedded in clearings formed within the woodland plantation known as Rough Grounds. The equestrian centre is part of an ambitious ten year plan to restore the historically important landscape laid out in the mid-nineteenth century. The project involves constructing a new road and bringing services to the site, two hundred metres across a field to the south. A major aim of the project has been to evolve principles for new initiatives for sustainable rural development.