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Just as he was unpacking the furniture, Alsop got a phone call. “This is really peculiar. It was North Norfolk district council, wanting me to build a swimming pool in Sheringham. I thought it was my business partner playing a joke on me. In the end, I said, ‘F*** off, John’, but then I realised it was a genuine inquiry.” Alsop’s unorthodox response to his first stand-alone commission didn’t deter the council, and the pool, finished in 1987 and opened by Princess Diana, still exists. “Except that they have ruined it,” he laments. “They have painted the outside blue and yellow to cheer it up. It is supposed to be stained timber.”

The project was a good way to spend time in the town and get to know it. “I started to fiddle with the house, a bit here, a bit there; it just evolved.” As did the garden, which grew over the years from a narrow strip at the back of the house to encompass two extra areas bought from neighbours around the corner — visitors liken it to a Tardis.

“I would plant a few things, then come back, and suddenly they were in flower. You get this delayed joy; that is terrific. From that, I became more and more serious, and started to think about what I would like it to be.”

At the far end is Alsop’s studio, next to a paved patio with yet more seating. On the table is a thick pile of his paintings. He has one in the Royal Academy’s summer show of some flower-like shapes. Its title? I Wish My Garden Was Really Like This. In fact, the garden at the back of the house is more about greenery and strong shapes than a riot of floral abundance. He and Sheila “don’t go for lots of colour”.

Thanks to the mild seaside climate, they have pines, figs, a tamarisk, South African restios, potted shrubs and ivy-clad walls. Although the beach is only 10 minutes away — Alsop starts taking dips in the sea when it has warmed up in early July — it is not a place to sunbathe. A canopy of high branches covers much of the space in dappled shade. “It’s a high umbrella and a garden full of telegraph poles,” he jokes. Perhaps his garden is where he got his inspiration for Peckham library.

The front garden is more formal, with a series of parallel lines created by the path, a long rectangular pond (or “short canal”, as Sheila calls it) and a row of agaves in long-tom pots. Extending down the garden is a box parterre, in which olive trees are planted. They were pruned recently by Wayne Nolan, the gardener, who comes in once a week, and are looking rather the worse for wear. “He didn’t have a clue — and why would he? — how to prune them, and it isn’t like that,” says Alsop. “I learnt that in France last week.”

There is also an Indian chestnut tree near the street. Alsop had hoped its black nuts would be his secret weapon in the annual office conker championships. “They are not. They are pathetic.”

Away from the front garden’s formal structure, things are left pretty much to themselves. At this time of year, self-seeded hollyhocks and campanulas are happily flowering beneath the tunnel and in the gravel beside it. “An over-designed garden feels dead,” says Alsop.

His approach to his outdoor space is much the same as to his architecture — letting the other elements, whether they are plants, clients or local communities, play their part, and not being too precious about allowing their contributions. “In your twenties, you think reading the philosophers and indulging in theory is going to help,” he explains. “I can assure you that it doesn’t. By the time you get to your thirties, you downgrade it all to ‘concept’. At 40, that becomes, ‘Well, maybe the idea is all right.’ At 50, it’s ‘a notion’. At 60, ‘Not a f***ing clue’.

“It’s sort of liberating. I have become suspicious, whether it is a garden or whatever, when people start talking about the justification for their design. I don’t believe in the word ‘inspiration’. You just have to do it.”

Explore Gardens

• Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

• Chelsea Flower Show

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