“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” reads the text of a 40-metre-high mural by British street artist Ben Eine, which was recently painted onto a portion of the exterior walls of the British embassy in Abu Dhabi. These walls encircle a slice of British soil, and have watched the city grow up, out and around them.
This piece of green land is seemingly dwarfed by its lofty surroundings. The British Embassy is the only compound, aside from certain mosques and Qasr Al Hosn Fort, that does not follow the layout of the Abu Dhabi city grid. Yet, behind its gates, set within mature and flourishing gardens, there are offices for more than 200 Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other British government staff, the official residence of the ambassador of Britain’s queen Elizabeth, the homes of several families working for the British embassy, as well as the second oldest building in Abu Dhabi – the former British Political Residence House.
Grainy black-and-white photographs of the capital from 1958 show the surrounding area as an empty stretch of desert, punctuated only by this structure and the Qasr Al Hosn Fort. The land was given to the British government by Sheikh Zayed around the time of the formation of the UAE in 1971. Marco Sosa, a British architect and assistant professor at Zayed University, has recently been involved in an exhibition charting the history of architecture in the UAE over the past 100 years. He notes that the Ambassador’s Residence, built in the modernist style in 1972, was designed by architecture firm John Harris & Partners.
“This a very delicately designed piece of modern heritage that reflects the regional culture and climate of the Gulf and is one of only two buildings that I know of in Abu Dhabi that were designed by Harris & Partners, the other being the American ambassador’s residence,” he explains.
John Harris & Partners was also responsible for the original city master planning for Dubai in the early 1970s and the positioning of key roads, schools and hospitals, as well as the design of Dubai’s first skyscraper, the Dubai Trade Centre.
Aside from the essential updating of facilities, the residence has remained largely unchanged since the 1970s. “[It is] a perfect example of the British tradition of respecting and maintaining buildings of architectural and cultural importance, both at home and abroad,” Sosa notes.
The grounds surrounding the Residence and embassy, with their expansive lawns and mature trees, have also played their part in supporting the UK mission in Abu Dhabi. They are regularly put to use for British-supported events and charitable concerns. The red carpet is rolled out, the trees are interwoven with lights, tables are brought out onto the lawn and decked in white linens, and a uniquely British environment is created for hosting and entertaining in the heart of city.
Her majesty’s ambassador lives at the Residence on the compound. Philip Parham moved here with his wife when he took up his post in Abu Dhabi in July 2014. During a tour of the garden, he tells me how the embassy’s grounds and gardens support the work of the British mission in the region. “We have had a lot of events recently; the queen’s birthday party, which 750 people attended, is part of projecting ourselves and reaching out to all our contacts, which include those for business as well as those who are valuable in supporting the smooth running of the embassy, in relation to visas, law enforcement and consular contacts.”
The queen’s birthday party is a long-standing event held annually at each British embassy or British high commission around the world, and is probably the largest event hosted by posts during the calendar year. The embassy grounds have also played host to Burns Night celebrations, charitable events and an annual dinner for the Oxford and Cambridge Society to mark the much-anticipated Boat Race, as well as smaller dinners and receptions. On the weekend, compound life continues, with small children riding about on their bikes and families using the pool.
Until April this year, the British embassy enjoyed a diplomatic tariff for the water supplied to the compound, which meant that since the land was gifted to the embassy, it has never incurred any irrigation charges.
However, due to recent changes in policy and in the spirit of sustainability, a water tariff has now been imposed, which has resulted in some adjustments being made to planting schemes in the compound. Some water-guzzling plant species and hedging have been removed, in favour of more sustainabl succulents and cactus, attractively framed in gravel beds and pots. A sustainability study is ongoing and investigations are being made into indigenous planting alternatives and grey water recycling systems for irrigation, to keep the embassy gardens looking verdant while supporting its green credentials.
A team of about half a dozen gardeners is responsible for maintaining the grounds, getting in among the beds for weeding and fertilising the soil with bone meal. Janet Rouse, assistant estates manager of corporate services in Dubai, says that one of the most challenging elements of the job is maintaining and caring for the lawns, especially before and after big events.
Much of the current garden design was completed in the early 1970s, although there are some larger, more mature tree specimens in the garden that probably predate this. These include date palms, and frangipani, flame and eucalyptus trees. The most impressive of these is the large banyan tree by the embassy gates. Previously, when the embassy conducted weddings on the compound, the carpet would come out and marriages would be officiated in the shade of this great tree. In Indian culture, the banyan is believed to be auspicious for marriage as it symbolises immortality, but at the British embassy it was probably as much about the attractive and romantic photo opportunities, as it was the imbued meaning. The embassy no longer marries UK citizens on the compound, although a consular official confided that they possibly still could, “if there was an emergency”.
Parham himself can regularly be found enjoying the grounds – although not as often as he’d like, he admits. “I would sit in the garden quite a lot, were it not for the fact that we currently have a construction site over the wall working 24/7. I do sometimes, nevertheless, just try to block it out. The terrace under the pagoda is a nice place to sit, with shade from the bougainvillea and the green of the grass; it is very pleasant when there isn’t a racket from the building next door.”
So, if an Englishman’s home is his castle, what is his garden? Parham sums it up: “The thing about a garden is that it is a place where you feel, to some extent, that you are creating things. It is building connections, networks, relations, in an environment that is conducive to doing those things – and you have to work quite hard at keeping a garden. It is very English, the idea of a garden, and as a nation so many of us garden and have allotments… and just enjoy the act of cultivating and growing.” He concludes: “An Englishman’s garden is his lair.”
weekend@thenational.ae
