Henry Wise (bapt. 4 September 1653 – 1738) was an English
gardener
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby.
Description
A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner suppleme ...
, designer, and nurseryman. He was apprenticed to
George London, working at Brompton Nursery, on the present site of the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, London. The two later worked as partners on
parterre
A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
gardens at
Hampton Court
Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief ...
,
Chelsea Hospital
The Royal Hospital Chelsea is a retirement home and nursing home for some 300 veterans of the British Army. Founded as an almshouse, the ancient sense of the word "hospital", it is a site located on Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea, London, Che ...
,
Longleat
Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquess of Bath, Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of War ...
,
Chatsworth,
Melbourne Hall
Melbourne Hall is a Georgian style country house in Melbourne, Derbyshire, previously owned by William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, British Prime Minister from 1835 to 1841. The house is now the seat of Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr and is open to th ...
,
Wimpole Hall
Wimpole Estate is a large estate containing Wimpole Hall, a country house located within the civil parish of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, England, about southwest of Cambridge. The house, begun in 1640, and its of parkland and farmland are owned b ...
and
Castle Howard
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, within the civil parish of Henderskelfe, located north of York. It is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years. ...
, drawing inspiration from engravings of contemporary garden designs in France and the
Netherlands
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.
Wise and London translated into English two well-known French texts on gardening. The resulting work was titled "The Retir'd Gard'ner, in Two Volumes: the Whole Revis'd, with Several Alterations and Additions, Which Render It Proper for Our English Culture." The book was printed in London in 1706 and went through several printings thanks to its popularity.
Kensington Gardens
Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde P ...
were laid out by Henry Wise and
Charles Bridgeman
Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738) was an English garden designer who helped pioneer the naturalistic landscape style. Although he was a key figure in the transition of English garden design from the Anglo-Dutch formality of patterned parterres an ...
with fashionable features including the
Round Pond, formal avenues and a sunken
Dutch garden
Dutch garden refers firstly to gardens in the Netherlands, but also, mainly in the English-speaking countries, to various types of gardens traditionally considered to be in a Dutch style, a presumption that has been much disputed by garden historia ...
.
Queen Anne of Great Britain
Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 8 March 1702 until 1 May 1707. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as ...
and
King George I both appointed him to the post of Royal Gardener. Although the Brompton nursery passed into other hands, Wise retained the house, Brompton Park. His will, in 1734, directed his heir to remove all the pictures remaining at Brompton to his house at
Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...
.
Wise became wealthy through his gardening endeavours and purchased the manor of The Priory, Warwick. He purchased the estate and the mansion and retired there as a country squire in 1727. Henry Wise died at The Priory on 15 Dec 1738, said to be worth some £200,000 – far more, probably, than some of his clients.
The writer and garden designer
Stephen Switzer
Stephen Switzer (1682–1745) was an English gardener, garden designer and writer on garden subjects, often credited as an early exponent of the English landscape garden. He is most notable for his views of the transition between the large garden ...
trained with London and Wise.
Notes
Further reading
*Green, David B. ''Gardener to Queen Anne: Henry Wise and the Formal Garden'' (Oxford University Press) 1956.''
*Harvey, John. ''Early Nurserymen'' 1974.
*Willson, E.J. ''West London Nursery Gardens'' (Fulham and Hammersmith Historical Society) 1982.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise, Henry
1653 births
1738 deaths
English gardeners
English landscape architects
Designers from London
People from Warwick