Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783),
more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and
landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manageme ...
, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the
English landscape garden
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, JardÃn inglés), is a sty ...
style. He is remembered as "the last of the great English 18th-century artists to be accorded his due" and "England's greatest gardener".
Unlike other architects including
William Kent
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...
, he was a hands-on gardener and provided his clients with a full
turnkey
A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...
service, designing the gardens and park, and then managing their landscaping and planting. He is most famous for the landscaped parks of
English country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
s, many of which have survived reasonably intact. However, he also included in his plans "pleasure gardens" with flower gardens and the new
shrubberies, usually placed where they would not obstruct the views across the park of and from the main facades of the house. Few of his plantings of "pleasure gardens" have survived later changes. He also submitted plans for much smaller urban projects, for example the college gardens along
The Backs
The Backs is a picturesque area to the east of Queen's Road in the city of Cambridge, England, where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back on to the River Cam, their grounds covering both banks of the river.
National Trust chairm ...
at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
.
Criticism of his style, both in his own day and subsequently, mostly centres on the claim that "he created 'identikit' landscapes with the main house in a sea of turf, some water, albeit often an impressive feature, and trees in clumps and shelterbelts," giving "a uniformity equating to authoritarianism" and showing a lack of imagination and even taste on the part of his patrons.
He designed more than 170 parks, many of which survive. He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement. His influence was so great that the contributions to the
English garden
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, JardÃn inglés), is a sty ...
made by his predecessors
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 ...
and
William Kent
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...
are often overlooked; even Kent's champion
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
allowed that Kent "was succeeded by a very able master".
Early life and Stowe
Lancelot Brown was the fifth child of a
land agent
Land agent may be used in at least three different contexts.
Traditionally, a land agent was a managerial employee who conducted the business affairs of a large estate (house), landed estate for a member of the landed gentry, supervising the farmi ...
and a
chambermaid
A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...
, born in the village of
Kirkharle
Kirkharle (otherwise Kirk Harle) is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Kirkwhelpington, in the county of Northumberland in Northern England located about west of the town of Morpeth, just to the west of the crossroads of the ...
,
Northumberland
Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey.
It is bordered by land on ...
, and educated at a school in
Cambo Cambo may refer to:
*Cambo, Northumberland, a village in Northumberland, England
* Cambo camera, Dutch camera manufacturer
*Cambo Estate, historic house in Fife, Scotland
*Cambo-les-Bains, town in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France
* Cambo oil field, ...
until he was 16. Brown's father, William Brown, had been Sir William
Loraine’s land agent and his mother, Ursula (née Hall), had been in service at
Kirkharle Hall
Kirkharle Hall was a country house at Kirkharle, Northumberland, England, the former seat of the Loraine family, now much reduced and in use as a farmhouse. The Hall is in the upper reaches of the Wansbeck valley; almost adjacent to the A696 ro ...
. His eldest brother, John, became the estate surveyor and later married Sir William's daughter. His older brother George became a mason-architect.
After school Lancelot worked as the head gardener's apprentice at Sir William
Loraine's kitchen garden at
Kirkharle Hall
Kirkharle Hall was a country house at Kirkharle, Northumberland, England, the former seat of the Loraine family, now much reduced and in use as a farmhouse. The Hall is in the upper reaches of the Wansbeck valley; almost adjacent to the A696 ro ...
until he was 23. In 1739 he journeyed south to the port of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
. Then he moved further inland, where his first landscape commission was for a new lake in the park at
Kiddington Hall
Kiddington Hall is a large Grade II listed manor house located in Kiddington, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England.
History
Kiddington Hall was built in 1673, and in the 18th century "Capability" Brown laid out the gardens.
The Reverend Thomas ...
,
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
.
[.] He moved to
Wotton Underwood House,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
, seat of Sir Richard Grenville.
![Berrington Hall - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Berrington_Hall_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1263571.jpg)
In 1741 Brown joined Lord Cobham's gardening staff as undergardener at
Stowe Gardens
Stowe or Stowe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens, are extensive, Grade I listed gardens and parkland in Buckinghamshire, England. Largely created in the eighteenth century the gardens at Stowe are arguably the most significant example ...
,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
,
where he worked under
William Kent
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...
, one of the founders of the new English style of
landscape garden
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, JardÃn inglés), is a sty ...
. In 1742, at the age of 26, he was officially appointed Head Gardener, earning £25 () a year and residing in the western Boycott Pavilion.
Brown remained at Stowe until 1750. He made the Grecian Valley at Stowe under William Kent's supervision. It is an abstract composition of landform and woodland. Lord Cobham let Brown take freelance work from his aristocratic friends, thus making him well known as a landscape gardener. As a proponent of the new English style Brown became immensely sought after by the
landed families. By 1751, when Brown was beginning to be widely known,
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
wrote somewhat slightingly of Brown's work at
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a meander of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-an ...
:
:''The castle is enchanting; the view pleased me more than I can express, the River Avon tumbles down a cascade at the foot of it. It is well laid out by one Brown who has set up on a few ideas of Kent and
Mr. Southcote.''
By the 1760s, he was earning on average £6,000 () a year, usually £500 () for one commission. As an accomplished rider he was able to work fast, taking only an hour or so on horseback to survey an estate and rough out an entire design. In 1764, Brown was appointed
King George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
's Master Gardener at
Hampton Court Palace
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 chie ...
, succeeding John Greening and residing at the Wilderness House.
In 1767 he bought an estate for himself at
Fenstanton
Fenstanton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, south of St Ives in Huntingdonshire, a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and historic county. Fenstanton lies on the south side of the River Ouse.
Known as ''St ...
in Huntingdonshire from the
Earl of Northampton
Earl of Northampton is a title in the Peerage of England that has been created five times.
Earls of Northampton, First Creation (1071)
* Waltheof (d. 1076)
* Maud, Queen of Scotland (c.1074–1130/31)
*Simon II de Senlis (1103–1153)
* Simon II ...
and was appointed
High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire
High may refer to:
Science and technology
* Height
* High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area
* High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory
* High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...
for 1770, although his son Lance carried out most of the duties.
Landscape gardens
It is estimated that Brown was responsible for more than 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain. His work endures at
Belvoir Castle
Belvoir Castle ( ) is a faux historic castle and stately home in Leicestershire, England, situated west of the town of Grantham and northeast of Melton Mowbray. The Castle was first built immediately after the Norman Conquest of 1066 an ...
,
Croome Court
Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown for ...
(where he also designed the house),
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace (pronounced ) is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the only non-royal, non- episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, on ...
,
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a meander of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-an ...
,
Harewood House
Harewood House ( , ) is a country house in Harewood, West Yorkshire, England. Designed by architects John Carr and Robert Adam, it was built, between 1759 and 1771, for Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a wealthy West Indian plantation a ...
,
Highclere Castle
Highclere Castle is a Grade I listed country house built in 1679 and largely renovated in the 1840s, with a park designed by Capability Brown in the 18th century. The estate is in Highclere in Hampshire, England, about south of Newbury, ...
,
Appuldurcombe House
Appuldurcombe House (also spelt Appledorecombe or Appledore Combe) is the shell of a large 18th-century English Baroque country house of the Worsley family. The house is situated near to Wroxall on the Isle of Wight, England. It is now managed b ...
,
Milton Abbey
Milton Abbey school is an independent school for day and boarding pupils in the village of Milton Abbas, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, in South West England. It has 224 pupils , in five houses: Athelstan, Damer, Hambro, Hodgkinson and Tregonw ...
(and nearby
Milton Abbas
Milton Abbas is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, lying around southwest of Blandford Forum. In the 2011 Census the civil parish had a population of 755.
This planned community was built after the old Town was demolished in the 17 ...
village) and in traces at
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...
and many other locations.
His style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scatterings of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers were a new style within the English landscape, a 'gardenless' form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles.
His landscapes were at the forefront of fashion. They were fundamentally different from what they replaced, the well-known formal gardens of England which were criticised by
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
and others from the 1710s. Starting in 1719, William Kent replaced these with more naturalistic compositions, which reached their greatest refinement in Brown's landscapes.
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 ...
Brown encountered
Hannah More
Hannah More (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at a s ...
in 1782 and she described his "grammatical" manner in her literary terms: ''"'Now ''there said he, pointing his finger, 'I make a comma, and there' pointing to another spot, 'where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon; at another part, where an interruption is desirable to break the view, a parenthesis; now a full stop, and then I begin another subject'".'' Brown's patrons saw the idealised landscapes he was creating for them in terms of the Italian landscape painters they admired and collected, as Kenneth Woodbridge first observed in the landscape at
Stourhead
Stourhead () is a 1,072-hectare (2,650-acre) estate at the source of the River Stour in the southwest of the English county of Wiltshire, extending into Somerset. The estate is about northwest of the town of Mere and includes a Grade I listed ...
, a "Brownian" landscape (with an un-Brownian circuit walk) in which Brown himself was not involved.
Criticism
Perhaps Brown's sternest critic was his contemporary
Uvedale Price
Sir Uvedale Price, 1st Baronet (baptised 14 April 1747 – 14 September 1829), author of the ''Essay on the Picturesque, As Compared with the Sublime and The Beautiful'' (1794), was a Herefordshire landowner who was at the heart of the 'Picturesqu ...
, who likened Brown's clumps of trees to "so many puddings turned out of one common mould."
Uvedale Price
Sir Uvedale Price, 1st Baronet (baptised 14 April 1747 – 14 September 1829), author of the ''Essay on the Picturesque, As Compared with the Sublime and The Beautiful'' (1794), was a Herefordshire landowner who was at the heart of the 'Picturesqu ...
''An Essay on the Picturesque''
J. Robson, London, 1796. Page 268. (In th
1794 edition
this is on page 191.) Russell Page
Montague Russell Page (1 November 1906 – 4 January 1985) was a British gardener, garden designer and landscape architect. He worked in the UK, western Europe and the United States of America.
Biography
Montague Russell Page was born in Lin ...
, who began his career in the Brownian landscape of
Longleat
Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster and Westbury in Wiltshire, ...
but whose own designs have formal structure, accused Brown of "encouraging his wealthy clients to tear out their splendid formal gardens and replace them with his facile compositions of grass, tree clumps and rather shapeless pools and lakes."
Richard Owen Cambridge
Richard Owen Cambridge (14 February 1717 – 17 September 1802) was a British poet.
Life
Cambridge was born in London. He was educated at Eton and at St John's College, Oxford. Leaving the university without taking a degree, he took up residen ...
, the English poet and
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
author, declared that he hoped to die before Brown so that he could "see heaven before it was 'improved'." This was a typical statement reflecting the controversy about Brown's work, which has continued over the last 200 years. By contrast, a recent historian and author, Richard Bisgrove, described Brown's process as perfecting nature by "judicious manipulation of its components, adding a tree here or a concealed head of water there. His art attended to the formal potential of ground, water, trees and so gave to English landscape its ideal forms. The difficulty was that less capable imitators and less sophisticated spectators did not see nature perfected... they saw simply what they took to be nature."
This deftness of touch was recognised in his own day; one anonymous
obituary
An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...
writer opined: "Such, however, was the effect of his genius that when he was the happiest man, he will be least remembered; so closely did he copy nature that his works will be mistaken." In 1772,
Sir William Chambers
__NOTOC__
Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy.
Biog ...
(though he did not mention Brown by name) complained that the "new manner" of gardens "differ very little from common fields, so closely is vulgar nature copied in most of them."
Architecture
Capability Brown produced more than 100 architectural drawings, and his work in the field of architecture was a natural outgrowth of his unified picture of the
English country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
in its setting:
"In Brown's hands the house, which before had dominated the estate, became an integral part of a carefully composed landscape intended to be seen through the eye of a painter, and its design could not be divorced from that of the garden"
Humphry Repton
Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...
observed that Brown ''"fancied himself an architect"'', but Brown's work as an architect is overshadowed by his great reputation as a designer of landscapes. Repton was bound to add: ''"he was inferior to none in what related to the comfort, convenience, taste and propriety of design, in the several mansions and other buildings which he planned".'' Brown's first country house project was the remodelling of
Croome Court
Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown for ...
,
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
, (1751–52) for the
6th Earl of Coventry
6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number.
In mathematics
Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second smalles ...
, in which instance he was likely following sketches by the gentleman amateur
Sanderson Miller
Sanderson Miller (1716 – 23 April 1780) was an English pioneer of Gothic revival architecture and landscape designer. He is noted for adding follies or other Picturesque garden buildings and features to the grounds of an estate.
Early life ...
.
Fisherwick, Staffordshire, Redgrave Hall, Suffolk, and
Claremont, Surrey, were classical, while at Corsham his outbuildings are in a
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
vein, including the
bathhouse
Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
. Gothic stable blocks and decorative outbuildings, arches and garden features constituted many of his designs. From 1771 he was assisted in the technical aspects by the master builder Henry Holland, and by Henry's son
Henry Holland the architect, whose initial career Brown supported; the younger Holland was increasingly Brown's full collaborator and became Brown's son-in-law in 1773.
Subsequent reputation
Brown's reputation declined rapidly after his death, because the English Landscape style did not convey the dramatic conflict and awesome power of wild nature. A reaction against the harmony and calmness of Brown's landscapes was inevitable; the landscapes lacked the
sublime thrill which members of the
Romantic generation (such as
Richard Payne Knight
Richard Payne Knight (11 February 1751 – 23 April 1824) of Downton Castle in Herefordshire, and of 5 Soho Square,History of Parliament biography London, England, was a classical scholar, connoisseur, archaeologist and numismatist best k ...
and
Uvedale Price
Sir Uvedale Price, 1st Baronet (baptised 14 April 1747 – 14 September 1829), author of the ''Essay on the Picturesque, As Compared with the Sublime and The Beautiful'' (1794), was a Herefordshire landowner who was at the heart of the 'Picturesqu ...
) looked for in their ideal landscape, where the painterly inspiration would come from
Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa (1615 –1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th ...
rather than
Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...
.
During the 19th century he was widely criticised, but during the twentieth century his reputation rose again.
Tom Turner
Tom Turner is an English landscape architect, garden designer and garden historian teaching at the University of Greenwich in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and t ...
has suggested that the latter resulted from a favourable account of his talent in
Marie-Luise Gothein's
History of Garden Art' which predated
Christopher Hussey's positive account of Brown in ''The Picturesque'' (1927).
Dorothy Stroud
A memorial at Croome Park
Dorothy Nancy Stroud MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'' ...
wrote the first full monograph on Capability Brown, fleshing out the generic attributions with documentation from country house estate offices.
Later landscape architects like
William Gilpin would opine that Brown's 'natural curves' were as artificial as the straight lines that were common in French gardens.
Brown's portrait by
Nathaniel Dance
Sir Nathaniel Dance (20 June 1748 – 25 March 1827) was an officer of the East India Company who had a long and varied career on merchant vessels, making numerous voyages to India and back with the fleets of East Indiamen. He was already awar ...
, c. 1773, is conserved in the
National Portrait Gallery, London. His work has often been favourably compared and contrasted ("the antithesis") to the Å“uvre of
André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre (; 12 March 1613 – 15 September 1700), originally rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. He was the landscape architect who designed the gar ...
, the French
''jardin à la française'' landscape architect.
He became both "rich and honoured and had 'improved' a greater acreage of ground than any landscape architect" who preceded him.
A festival to celebrate the tercentenary of Brown's birth was held in 2016. Th
Capability Brown Festival 2016published a large amount of new research on Brown's work and held over 500 events across Britain as part of the celebrations. Royal Mail issued a series of Landscape Stamps in his honour in August 2016.
The Gardens Trust with support from
Historic England
Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...
, published ''Vulnerability Brown: Capability Brown landscapes at risk'' in October 2017 to review the issues facing the survival of these landscapes as well as suggested solutions.
A commemorative fountain in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
’s cloister garth was dedicated for Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown after Evensong on Tuesday 29 May 2018 by the
Dean of Westminster
The Dean of Westminster is the head of the chapter at Westminster Abbey. Due to the Abbey's status as a Royal Peculiar, the dean answers directly to the British monarch (not to the Bishop of London as ordinary, nor to the Archbishop of Canterbur ...
, the Very Reverend Dr
John Hall John Hall may refer to:
Academics
* John Hall (NYU President) (fl. c. 1890), American academic
* John A. Hall (born 1949), sociology professor at McGill University, Montreal
* John F. Hall (born 1951), professor of classics at Brigham Young Unive ...
. The fountain sits over an old monastic well in the garth. It was designed by
Ptolemy Dean
Ptolemy Hugo Dean (born 1968) is a British architect, television presenter and the 19th Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey. He specialises in historic preservation, as well as designing new buildings that are in keeping with their histo ...
, the Abbey's Surveyor of the Fabric, and was developed with the assistance of gardener
Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Fred Titchmarsh HonFSE (born 2 May 1949) is an English gardener, broadcaster, TV presenter, poet, and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he established himself as a media personality through a ...
. The fountain was made in lead by sculptor Brian Turner.
Personal life
On 22 November 1744 he married in
Stowe
Stowe may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Stowe, Buckinghamshire, a civil parish and former village
**Stowe House
**Stowe School
* Stowe, Cornwall, in Kilkhampton parish
* Stowe, Herefordshire, in the List of places in Herefordshire
* Stowe, Linc ...
parish church, Bridget Wayet (affectionately called Biddy) from
Boston, Lincolnshire
Boston is a market town and inland port in the borough of the same name in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Boston is north of London, north-east of Peterborough, east of Nottingham, south-east of Lincoln, south-southeast of Hull ...
.
Her father was an
alderman
An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...
and landowner while her family had surveyors and engineers among its members. They had eight children: Bridget in 1746, Lancelot (known as Lance), William (who died young), John in 1751, a son in 1754 who died shortly afterwards, Anne who was born and died in 1756, Margaret (known as Peggy) in 1758 and Thomas in 1761.
In 1768 he purchased the manor of Fenstanton in
Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popul ...
in East Anglia for £13,000 from Lord Northampton. This came with two manor houses, two villages and 2,668 acres of land. The property stayed in the family until it was sold in lots in 1870s and 1880s. Ownership of the property allowed him to stand for and serve as High Sheriff of Huntingdonshire from 1770 to 1771. He continued to work and travel until his sudden collapse and death on 6 February 1783, on the doorstep of his daughter Bridget Holland's house, at 6
Hertford Street
Hertford Street is a street in central London's Mayfair district.
It runs between a junction with Park Lane and Old Park Lane at its western end, to Curzon Street at its north-east end.
In 1771, Anne, Duchess of Cumberland and Strathearn marrie ...
, London while returning after a night out at Lord Coventry's.
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
wrote to
Lady Ossory
Anne FitzPatrick, Countess of Upper Ossory (née Liddell, also known as Anne FitzRoy, Duchess of Grafton; c. 1737 – 1804) was an English noblewoman and the first wife of Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. Grafton divorced her while s ...
: ''"Your dryads must go into black gloves, Madam, their father-in-law, Lady Nature’s second husband, is dead!"''. Brown was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter and St. Paul, the parish church of Brown's small estate at
Fenstanton
Fenstanton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, south of St Ives in Huntingdonshire, a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and historic county. Fenstanton lies on the south side of the River Ouse.
Known as ''St ...
Manor. He left an estate of approximately £40,000, which included property in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire. His eldest daughter Bridget married the architect
Henry Holland. Brown sent two of his sons to
Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England.
Eton may also refer to:
Places
*Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England
* Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States
* Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...
. One of them, Lancelot Brown the younger, became the MP for
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...
. His son John joined the Royal Navy and rose to become an admiral.
Gardens and parks
Many of Capability Brown's parks and gardens may still be visited today. A partial list of the landscapes he designed or worked on includes:
*
Adderbury House, Oxfordshire (designs not thought to be implemented)
*
Addington Place, Croydon
*
Alnwick Castle
Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a G ...
, Northumberland
*
Althorp
Althorp (popularly pronounced ) is a Grade I listed stately home and estate in the civil parish of Althorp, in West Northamptonshire, England of about . By road it is about northwest of the county town of Northampton and about northwest of c ...
, Northamptonshire
*
Ampthill Park
Ampthill Park and Ampthill Park House is a country estate in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, England. The park was opened to the public after the Second World War.
From the 14th century Ampthill Park was a royal lodge and hunting park. In the 15th centur ...
,
Ampthill
Ampthill () is a town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, between Bedford and Luton, with a population estimate of 8,100 (Mid year estimate 2017 from the ONS). It is administered bAmpthill Town Council The ward of Ampthill which also i ...
, Bedfordshire
* Ancaster House, Richmond, Surrey
*
Appuldurcombe House
Appuldurcombe House (also spelt Appledorecombe or Appledore Combe) is the shell of a large 18th-century English Baroque country house of the Worsley family. The house is situated near to Wroxall on the Isle of Wight, England. It is now managed b ...
, Isle of Wight
*
Ashburnham Place
Ashburnham Place is an English country house, now used as a Christian conference and prayer centre, five miles west of Battle, East Sussex. It was one of the finest houses in the southeast of England in its heyday, but much of the structure was de ...
, East Sussex
*
Ashridge House, Hertfordshire
*
Aske Hall
Aske Hall is a Georgian country house, with parkland attributed to Capability Brown, north of Richmond, North Yorkshire, England. It contains an impressive collection of 18th-century furniture, paintings and porcelain, and in its grounds a John ...
, North Yorkshire
*
Astrop Park
King's Sutton is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, Northamptonshire, England in the valley of the River Cherwell. The village is about south-east of Banbury, Oxfordshire.
The parish includes the hamlets of Astrop contiguous ...
, Northamptonshire
*
Audley End
Audley End House is a largely early 17th-century country house outside Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It is a prodigy house, known as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England.
Audley End is now one-third of its original size, but is sti ...
, Essex
*
Aynhoe Park
Aynhoe Park, is a 17th-century country estate consisting of land and buildings that were rebuilt after the English Civil War on the southern edge of the stone-built village of Aynho, Northamptonshire, England. It overlooks the Cherwell valley tha ...
, Northamptonshire
*
The Backs
The Backs is a picturesque area to the east of Queen's Road in the city of Cambridge, England, where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back on to the River Cam, their grounds covering both banks of the river.
National Trust chairm ...
, Cambridge
*
Badminton House
Badminton House is a large country house and Grade I Listed Building in Badminton, Gloucestershire, England, which has been the principal seat of the Dukes of Beaufort since the late 17th century. The house, which has given its name to th ...
, Gloucestershire
*
Ballyfin House, Ireland
*
Basildon Park
Basildon Park is a country house situated 2 miles (3 kilometres) south of Goring-on-Thames and Streatley in Berkshire, between the villages of Upper Basildon and Lower Basildon. It is owned by the National Trust and is a Grade I listed buildin ...
, Berkshire
*
Battle Abbey
Battle Abbey is a partially ruined Benedictine abbey in Battle, East Sussex, England. The abbey was built on the site of the Battle of Hastings and dedicated to St Martin of Tours. It is a Scheduled Monument.
The Grade I listed site is now op ...
, East Sussex
*
Beaudesert, Staffordshire
* Beechwood, Bedfordshire
*
Belhus, Essex
*
Belvoir Castle
Belvoir Castle ( ) is a faux historic castle and stately home in Leicestershire, England, situated west of the town of Grantham and northeast of Melton Mowbray. The Castle was first built immediately after the Norman Conquest of 1066 an ...
, Leicestershire
*
Benham, Berkshire
*
Benwell Tower
The Mitre is a building situated in the Benwell area in the west end of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is a Grade II listed building.
A tower house known as Benwell Tower was built in 1221. It became home to a branch of the Shafto family of ...
, near Newcastle upon Tyne
*
Berrington Hall, Herefordshire
*
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace (pronounced ) is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the only non-royal, non- episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, on ...
, Oxfordshire
*
Boarstall
Boarstall is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, about west of Aylesbury. The parish is on the county boundary with Oxfordshire and the village is about southeast of the Oxfordshire market town of Bice ...
, Buckinghamshire (unknown if work carried out)
*
Bowood House
Bowood is a Grade I listed Georgian country house in Wiltshire, England, that has been owned for more than 250 years by the Fitzmaurice family. The house, with interiors by Robert Adam, stands in extensive grounds which include a garden designed ...
, Wiltshire
*
Branches Park, Cowlinge, Suffolk
*
Brentford
Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross.
Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...
, Ealing
*
Brightling Park
Brightling Park (previously known as Rose Hill) is a country estate which lies in the parishes of Brightling and Dallington in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. It is now the home of Grissell Racing, who have operated a racehorse train ...
, Sussex
*
Broadlands
Broadlands is an English country house, located in the Civil parishes in England, civil parish of Romsey Extra, near the town of Romsey in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The formal gardens and historic landscape of Broadlands ...
, Hampshire
* Brocklesby Park, Lincolnshire
*
Burghley House
Burghley House () is a grand sixteenth-century English country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire. It is a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, built and still lived in by the Cecil family. The exterior largely retains its Elizabet ...
, Lincolnshire
*
Burton Constable Hall
Burton Constable Hall is a large Elizabethan country house in England, with 18th- and 19th-century interiors and a fine 18th-century cabinet of curiosities. The hall, a Grade I listed building, is set in a park designed by Capability Brown ...
, East Riding of Yorkshire
*
Burton Park, Sussex
*
Burton Pynsent House, Somerset
* Byram, West Yorkshire
* Cadland, Hampshire
*
Capheaton Hall
Capheaton Hall, near Wallington, Northumberland, is an English country house, the seat of the Swinburne Baronets and a childhood home of the poet Algernon Swinburne. It counts among the principal gentry seats of Northumberland. It is a Grade I ...
, Northumberland
*
Cardiff Castle
Cardiff Castle ( cy, Castell Caerdydd) is a medieval castle and Victorian Gothic revival mansion located in the city centre of Cardiff, Wales. The original motte and bailey castle was built in the late 11th century by Norman invaders on top ...
, Cardiff
*
Castle Ashby House
Castle Ashby House is a country house at Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, England. It is one of the seats of the Marquess of Northampton. The house, church, formal gardens and landscaped park are Grade I listed.
The original castle, a manor hou ...
, Northamptonshire
*
Caversham, Berkshire
* Chalfont House, Buckinghamshire
*
Charlecote
Charlecote is a village and civil parish south of Warwick, on the River Avon, in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, England. In 2011 the parish had a population of 194. The parish touches Wasperton, Newbold Pacey, ...
, Warwickshire
*
Charlton, Wiltshire
*
Chatsworth, Derbyshire
*
Chilham Castle
Chilham Castle is a Jacobean manor house and keep in the village of Chilham, between Ashford and Canterbury in the county of Kent, England. The keep is of Norman origin and dates to 1174; the manor house was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Di ...
, Kent
*
Chillington Hall
Chillington Hall is a Georgian country house near Brewood, Staffordshire, England, four miles northwest of Wolverhampton. It is the residence of the Giffard family. The Grade I listed house was designed by Francis Smith in 1724 and John Soan ...
, West Midlands
* Church Stretton Old Rectory, Shropshire
*
Clandon Park
Clandon Park House is an early 18th-century grade I listed Palladian mansion in West Clandon, near Guildford in Surrey.
It stands in the south east corner of Clandon Park, a agricultural parkland estate which has been the seat of the Earls of ...
, Surrey
*
Claremont, Surrey
*
Clumber Park
Clumber Park is a country park in The Dukeries near Worksop in Nottinghamshire, England. The estate, which was the seat of the Pelham-Clintons, Dukes of Newcastle, was purchased by the National Trust in 1946. It is listed Grade I on the Register ...
, Nottinghamshire
*
Compton Verney
Compton Verney is a parish and historic manor in the county of Warwickshire, England. The population taken at the 2011 census was 119. The surviving manor house is the Georgian mansion Compton Verney House.
Descent of the manor
The first r ...
, Warwickshire
*
Coombe Abbey
Coombe Abbey is a hotel which has been developed from a historic grade I listed building and former country house. It is located at Combe Fields in the Borough of Rugby, roughly midway between Coventry and Brinklow in the countryside of Warwicksh ...
, Coventry
*
Corsham Court
Corsham Court is an English country house in a park designed by Capability Brown. It is in the town of Corsham, 3 miles (5 km) west of Chippenham, Wiltshire, and is notable for its fine art collection, based on the nucleus of paintin ...
, Wiltshire
*
Croome Park
Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown fo ...
, Worcestershire
*
Dodington Park
Dodington Park is a country house and estate in Dodington, South Gloucestershire, England. The house was built by James Wyatt for Christopher Bethell Codrington (of the Codrington baronets). The family had made their fortune from sugar pl ...
, Gloucestershire
*
Danson Park
Danson Park is a public park in the London Borough of Bexley, South East London, located between Welling and Bexleyheath. At 75 hectares, it is the second largest public park in the borough (the largest being Foots Cray Meadows at 100 hectares), ...
, Bexley Borough of London
*
Darley Abbey
Darley Abbey is a former historic mill village, now a suburb of the city of Derby, England. It is located approximately north of the city centre, on the west bank of the River Derwent, and forms part of the Darley ward along with Little Ches ...
Park,
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...
*
Ditchingham Hall
Ditchingham Hall is an English country house, near the village of Ditchingham in south Norfolk, England, which is set in about of parkland landscaped by Capability Brown.
The Hall is about northwest of Ditchingham off the B1332 road between Bu ...
,
Ditchingham
Ditchingham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located across the River Waveney from Bungay, Suffolk.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer Map OL40 - The Broads''. .
History
Ditchingham's name is of Anglo-S ...
, Norfolk
*
Euston Hall
Euston Hall is a country house, with park by William Kent and Capability Brown, located in Euston, a small village in Suffolk located just south of Thetford, England. It is the family home of the Dukes of Grafton.
The Hall
Euston first appears ...
, Suffolk
*
Farnborough Hall
Farnborough Hall is a country house in Warwickshire, England near to the town of Banbury, (). Owned by the National Trust, but administered by the Holbech family; the house is a Grade I listed building.
History
Ambrose Holbech acquired the F ...
, Warwickshire
*
Fawley Court
Fawley Court is a country house, with large mixed-use grounds standing on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in the English county of Buckinghamshire. Its former deer park extended east into the Henley Park area of Henley-on-Thames, Ox ...
, Oxfordshire
*
Gatton Park, Surrey
*
Grimsthorpe Castle
Grimsthorpe Castle is a country house in Lincolnshire, England north-west of Bourne on the A151. It lies within a 3,000 acre (12 km2) park of rolling pastures, lakes, and woodland landscaped by Capability Brown. While Grimsthorpe is not ...
, Lincolnshire
*
Hampton Court Palace
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 chie ...
, Surrey
*
Harewood House
Harewood House ( , ) is a country house in Harewood, West Yorkshire, England. Designed by architects John Carr and Robert Adam, it was built, between 1759 and 1771, for Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a wealthy West Indian plantation a ...
, Leeds
*
Heveningham Hall
Heveningham Hall is a Grade I listed building in Heveningham, Suffolk. The first house on the site was built for the politician and regicide William Heveningham in 1658. The present house, dating from 1778 to 1780, was designed by Sir Robert Ta ...
, Suffolk
*
Highclere Castle
Highclere Castle is a Grade I listed country house built in 1679 and largely renovated in the 1840s, with a park designed by Capability Brown in the 18th century. The estate is in Highclere in Hampshire, England, about south of Newbury, ...
, Hampshire
*
Highcliffe Castle
Highcliffe Castle, situated on the cliffs at Highcliffe, Dorset, was built between 1831 and 1835 by Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay in a Gothic Revival style near the site of High Cliff House, a Georgian Mansion designed for the 3rd ...
, Dorset
*
Himley Hall
Himley Hall is an early 17th-century country house situated in Staffordshire, England. It is situated in the south of the county in the small village of Himley, near to the town of Dudley and the city of Wolverhampton. Himley Hall is a Grade I ...
, Staffordshire
*
Holkham Hall
Holkham Hall ( or ) is an 18th-century English country house, country house near the village of Holkham, Norfolk, England, constructed in the Neo-Palladian style for the Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (fifth creation), 1st Earl of Leicester ...
, Norfolk
*
Holland Park
Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road ...
, London
* The Hoo, Hertfordshire
*
Hornby Castle, North Yorkshire
* Howsham, near York
*
Ickworth
Ickworth is a small civil parish, almost coextensive with the estate of the National Trust's Ickworth House, in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk, eastern England, south-west of Bury St Edmunds. The population of the parish was only minimal a ...
, Suffolk
*
Ingestre
Ingestre is a village and civil parish in the Stafford district, in the county of Staffordshire, England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 194. It is four miles to the north-east of the county town of Stafford.
Ing ...
, Staffordshire
*
Ingress Abbey
Ingress Abbey was a Neo-gothic Jacobean-style country house in Greenhithe, Kent, England. It was built on the Ingress Estate, owned by the Viscount Duncannon in the 18th century and after having been passed on among many owners the buildings we ...
, Kent
*
Kelston
Kelston is a small village and civil parish in Somerset, north west of Bath, and east of Bristol, on the A431 road. It is situated just north of the River Avon, close to the Kelston and Saltford locks. The parish has a population of 248.
...
, Somerset
*
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...
, South West London
*
Kiddington Hall
Kiddington Hall is a large Grade II listed manor house located in Kiddington, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England.
History
Kiddington Hall was built in 1673, and in the 18th century "Capability" Brown laid out the gardens.
The Reverend Thomas ...
, Oxfordshire
*
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
* Kimberley (Western Australia)
** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley
* Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania
* Kimberley, Tasmania a small town
* County of Kimberley, a ...
, Norfolk
*
Kimbolton Castle
Kimbolton Castle is a country house in Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire, England. It was the final home of King Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Originally a medieval castle but converted into a stately palace, it was the family seat of t ...
, Cambridgeshire
*
King's Weston House
Kings Weston House () is a historic building in Kings Weston Lane, Kingsweston, Bristol, England.
History
It was built between 1712 and 1719 was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh for Edward Southwell on the site of an earlier Tudor house, remod ...
, Bristol
*
Kirkharle
Kirkharle (otherwise Kirk Harle) is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Kirkwhelpington, in the county of Northumberland in Northern England located about west of the town of Morpeth, just to the west of the crossroads of the ...
, Northumberland
*
Kirtlington
Kirtlington is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire about west of Bicester. The parish includes the hamlet of Northbrook. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 988. The parish measures nearly north–south and about eastâ ...
, Oxfordshire
*
Knowsley, near Liverpool
*
Kyre
Kyre is a small village and civil parish in the Malvern Hills district of the county of Worcestershire, England, and shares its parish council with neighbouring Stoke Bliss and Bockleton.
Kyre Minor and Kyre Wyard were both in the upper divisio ...
Park, Herefordshire
*
Lacock Abbey
Lacock Abbey in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order. The abbey remained a nunnery until the suppression of Roman Catholic inst ...
, Wiltshire
*
Laleham Abbey, Surrey
*
Langley Langley may refer to:
People
* Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name
* Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer
* Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perfor ...
, Berkshire
*
Langley Park, Buckinghamshire
*
Langley Park, Norfolk
*
Latimer, Buckinghamshire
*
Leeds Abbey
Leeds Priory, also known as Leeds Abbey, was a priory in Leeds, Kent, England, that was founded in 1119 and dissolved in 1539. A mansion was later built on the site of the priory; it was demolished in the late 18th century. The site of the form ...
, Kent
* Littlegrove, Barnet, London
*
Lleweni Hall
Lleweni Hall (Welsh: ''Plas Lleweni''; sometimes also referred to as Llewenny Palace) was a stately home in Denbighshire, northeast Wales, around north-east of Denbigh on the banks of the River Clwyd. It was the principal seat of the Salusb ...
, Clwyd
*
Longford Castle
Longford Castle stands on the banks of the River Avon south of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It is the seat of the Earl of Radnor, and an example of the Elizabethan prodigy house.
History
In 1573 Thomas Gorges acquired the manor (at the ti ...
, Wiltshire
*
Longleat
Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster and Westbury in Wiltshire, ...
, Wiltshire
*
Lowther, Cumbria
*
Luton Hoo
Luton Hoo is an English country house and Estate (land), estate near Luton in Bedfordshire and Harpenden in Hertfordshire. Most of the estate lies within the civil parish of Hyde, Bedfordshire. The Old English language, Saxon word wikt:hoo#Etym ...
, Bedfordshire
*
Madingley Hall
Madingley is a small village near Cambridge, England. It is located close to the nearby villages of Coton and Dry Drayton on the western outskirts of Cambridge. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 210.
The village was kno ...
, Cambridgeshire
* Maiden Earley, Berkshire
*
Mamhead House
Mamhead House, Mamhead, Devon, is a country house dating from 1827. Its origins are older but the present building was constructed for Robert William Newman, an Exeter merchant, in 1827–1833 by Anthony Salvin. The house is Grade I listed as Daw ...
, Devon
*
Melton Constable Hall
Melton Constable Hall is a large (Grade I listed) country house in the parish of Melton Constable, Norfolk, England designed in the Christopher Wren style and built between 1664 and 1670 for the Astley family who owned the estate from 1235 until 19 ...
, Norfolk
*
Milton Abbey
Milton Abbey school is an independent school for day and boarding pupils in the village of Milton Abbas, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, in South West England. It has 224 pupils , in five houses: Athelstan, Damer, Hambro, Hodgkinson and Tregonw ...
, Dorset
*
Moccas Court
Moccas Court is an 18th-century country house which sits in sloping grounds overlooking the River Wye north of the village of Moccas, Herefordshire, England. It is now a luxury guest house and function venue.
The house was built in 1775–81 by t ...
, Herefordshire
*
Moor Park, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire
*
Mount Clare, Roehampton, South West London
*
Navestock
Navestock is a civil parish in the Borough of Brentwood in south Essex, in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. It is located approximately northwest of the town of Brentwood and the M25 motorway cuts through the western edge of t ...
, Essex
* Newnham Paddox, Warwickshire
*
Newton Park
Newton Park is an 18th-century Grade I listed country house in the parish of Newton St Loe, Somerset, England, situated west of Bath.
History
Newton Park was built in 1762–5 by Joseph Langton (grandson of Joseph Langton (c.1637–1719) ...
, Newton St Loe, Somerset
*
New Wardour Castle
New Wardour Castle is a Grade I listed English country house at Wardour, near Tisbury in Wiltshire, built for the Arundell family. The house is of Palladian style, designed by the architect James Paine, with additions by Giacomo Quarenghi, wh ...
, Wiltshire
* North Cray Place, near Sidcup, Bexley, London
*
North Stoneham Park
North Stoneham Park, also known as Stoneham Park, was a landscaped parkland and country house of the same name, north of Southampton at North Stoneham, Hampshire. It was the seat of the Fleming (subsequently Willis Fleming) family. The park was ...
, Eastleigh, Hampshire
*
Nuneham Courtenay
Nuneham Courtenay is a village and civil parish about southeast of Oxford. It occupies a pronounced section of the left bank of the River Thames.
Geography
The parish is bounded to the west by the River Thames and on other sides by field bound ...
, Oxfordshire
* Oakley, Shropshire
*
Packington Park, Warwickshire
*
Paddenswick Manor, West London
*
Patshull Hall
Patshull Hall is a substantial Georgian mansion house situated near Pattingham in Staffordshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building and by repute is one of the largest listed buildings in the county.
History
The Hall was built to designs by ...
, Staffordshire
*
Paultons Park
Paultons Park is an amusement park located in the New Forest National Park, near the village of Ower, in Hampshire, England, with over 70 rides and attractions. The Peppa Pig World themed area is based on the children's animated television ser ...
, Hampshire
*
Peper Harow House
Peper Harow is a rural village and civil parish in south-west Surrey close to the town of Godalming. It was a noted early cricket venue. Its easternmost fields are in part given up to the A3 trunk road.
Location and history
The name "Peper Haro ...
, Surrey
* Peterborough House, Hammersmith, London
*
Petworth House
Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Sa ...
, West Sussex
*
Pishiobury
Pishiobury, sometimes spelled Pishobury, was a manor and estate in medieval Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Its denomination as "Pishiobury" only emerged in the mid to late 19th century.
History
This sub-manor of Pishiobury originated in a gran ...
, Hertfordshire
* Porter's Park, Hertfordshire
*
Prior Park
Prior Park is a Neo-Palladian house that was designed by John Wood, the Elder, and built in the 1730s and 1740s for Ralph Allen on a hill overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
The house was bu ...
, Somerset
*
Ragley Hall
Ragley Hall in the parish of Arrow in Warwickshire is a stately home, located south of Alcester and eight miles (13 km) west of Stratford-upon-Avon. It is the ancestral seat of the Seymour-Conway family, Marquesses of Hertford.
History
...
, Warwickshire
* Redgrave Park, Suffolk
*
Roche Abbey
Roche Abbey is a now-ruined abbey in the civil parish of Maltby, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It is in the valley of Maltby Dyke, known locally as Maltby Beck, and is administered by English Heritage. It is a scheduled monument and Gr ...
, South Yorkshire
*
Sandleford
Sandleford is a hamlet and former parish in the English county of Berkshire. Since at least 1924, the settlement has been within the civil parish of Greenham, and is located approximately south of the town of Newbury.
Landscape
Sandleford c ...
, Berkshire
*
Savernake Forest
Savernake Forest stands on a Cretaceous chalk plateau between Marlborough and Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, England. Its area is approximately .
Most of the forest lies within the civil parish of Savernake. It is privately owned by the Earl of Ca ...
, Wiltshire
*
Schloss Richmond (Richmond Palace) in
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...
, Germany
*
Scampston Hall
Scampston Hall is a Grade II* listed English country house, country house in North Yorkshire, England, with a serpentine park designed by Charles Bridgeman and Capability Brown. It is located on the north side of the A64 Leeds/Scarborough road, ...
, North Yorkshire
*
Sheffield Park Garden
Sheffield Park and Garden is an informal landscape garden five miles east of Haywards Heath, in East Sussex, England. It was originally laid out in the 18th century by Capability Brown, and further developed as a woodland garden in the early 20th ...
, Sussex
*
Sherborne Castle
Sherborne Castle is a 16th-century Tudor mansion southeast of Sherborne in Dorset, England, within the parish of Castleton. It stands in a park which formed a small part of the Digby estate.
Old castle
Sherborne Old Castle () is the ruin ...
, Dorset
*
Sledmere House
Sledmere House is a Grade I listed Georgian country house, containing Chippendale, Sheraton and French furnishings and many fine pictures, set within a park designed by Capability Brown. It is located in the village of Sledmere, between Driffi ...
, East Riding of Yorkshire
*
Southill Park
Southill Park contains the site of late medieval Gastlings or Gastlyns Manor House and is the name given to a country house in Southill, Bedfordshire and its adjoining privately owned gardens and separate public parkland; it includes a lake and wo ...
, Bedfordshire
*
South Stoneham House
South Stoneham House is a Grade II* listed former manor house in Swaythling, Southampton; the former seat of the Barons Swaythling before the family moved to the nearby Townhill Park House. The building is owned by the University of Southampton ...
, Southampton, Hampshire
*
Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire
*
Stowe Landscape Garden
Stowe or Stowe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens, are extensive, Grade I listed gardens and parkland in Buckinghamshire, England. Largely created in the eighteenth century the gardens at Stowe are arguably the most significant example o ...
*
Syon House
Syon House is the west London residence of the Duke of Northumberland. A Grade I listed building, it lies within the 200-acre (80 hectare) Syon Park, in the London Borough of Hounslow.
The family's traditional central London residence had be ...
, West London
*
Temple Newsam
Temple Newsam (historically Temple Newsham), () is a Tudor- Jacobean house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown.
The estate lends its name to the Temple Newsam ward of Leeds City Council, in which it ...
, Leeds
*
Thorndon Hall
Thorndon Hall is a Georgian Palladian country house within Thorndon Park, Ingrave, Essex, England, approximately two miles south of Brentwood and from central London.
Formerly the country seat of the Petre family who now reside at nearby In ...
, Essex
*
Trentham Gardens
The Trentham Estate, in the village of Trentham, is a visitor attraction located on the southern fringe of the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, United Kingdom.
History
The estate was first recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086. At th ...
, Staffordshire
*
Ugbrooke Park, Devon
*
Wallington, Northumberland
[Pevsner, N., et al. 1992, The Buildings of England: Northumberland]
*
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a meander of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-an ...
, Warwick
*
Wentworth Castle
Wentworth Castle is a grade-I listed country house, the former seat of the Earls of Strafford, at Stainborough, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is now home to the Northern College for Residential and Community Education.
An ...
, South Yorkshire
*
West Hill, Putney, South London
*
Weston Park
Weston Park is a country house in Weston-under-Lizard, Staffordshire, England, set in more than of park landscaped by Capability Brown. The park is located north-west of Wolverhampton, and north-east of Telford, close to the border with Sh ...
, Staffordshire
*
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main ...
, London
*
Whitley Beaumont, West Yorkshire
* Widdicombe Park, near Slapton, Devon
* Wimbledon House, South West London
*
Wimbledon Park
Wimbledon Park is the name of an urban park in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon and also of the suburb south and east of the park and the Wimbledon Park tube station. The park itself is in area. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is immedi ...
, South West London
*
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 ...
, Cambridgeshire
*
Woburn Abbey
Woburn Abbey (), occupying the east of the village of Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Although it is still a family home to the current duke, it is open on specified days to visitors, a ...
, Bedfordshire
*
Wolterton Hall
Wolterton Hall, is a large country house in the ecclesiastical parish of Wickmere with Wolterton and the civil parish of Wickmere in the English county of Norfolk, England, United Kingdom. The present hall was commissioned by the 1st Lord Walpole ...
, Norfolk
*
Woodchester
Woodchester is a Gloucestershire village in the Nailsworth (or Woodchester) Valley, a valley in the South Cotswolds in England, running southwards from Stroud along the A46 road to Nailsworth. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was ...
, Gloucestershire
*
Woodside, Berkshire
* Wootton Place Rectory, Oxfordshire
*
Wotton, Buckinghamshire
*
Wrest Park
Wrest Park is a country estate located in Silsoe, Bedfordshire, England. It comprises Wrest Park, a Grade I listed country house, and Wrest Park Gardens, also Grade I listed, formal gardens surrounding the mansion.
History
Thomas Carew (1595 ...
, Bedfordshire
*
Wrotham Park
Wrotham Park (pronounced , ) is a neo-Palladian English country house in the parish of South Mimms, Hertfordshire. It lies south of the town of Potters Bar, from Hyde Park Corner in central London. The house was designed by Isaac Ware in 1754 ...
, Hertfordshire
*
Wycombe Abbey
Wycombe Abbey is an independent girls' boarding and day school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls schools in academic results.
The school was founded in 1896 by Dame Frances Dove (1847 ...
, Buckinghamshire
*
Wynnstay
Wynnstay is a country house within an important landscaped park 1.3 km (0.75 miles) south-east of Ruabon, near Wrexham, Wales. Wynnstay, previously Watstay, is a famous estate and the family seat of the Wynns. The house was sold in 1948 and ...
, Clwyd, Wales
*
Youngsbury, Hertfordshire
More than 30 of the gardens are open to the public.
See also
*
Ha-ha
A ha-ha (french: hâ-hâ or ), also known as a sunk fence, blind fence, ditch and fence, deer wall, or foss, is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier (particularly on one side) while preserving an uninterrupted view ...
*
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
Notes
References
* .
*
*
* .
* .
*
* 2nd edition, Phillimore, Chichester (1999) , .
*Wickham, Louise, ''Gardens in History: A Political Perspective'', 2012, Windgather Press, ISBN 1905119437
Amazon preview
Further reading
*
*
*
* Publisher: Hacker Art Books; Facsimile edition (June 1972) ; .
*Gothein, Marie. ''Geschichte der Gartenkunst''. München: Diederichs, 1988 .
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External links
*
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*
Capability Brown and his Account Book Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library, volume 14, October 2016.
Capability Brown's unfinished garden*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Capability
Architects from Northumberland
English landscape architects
Landscape architects
English Landscape Garden designers
English gardeners
1716 births
1783 deaths
High Sheriffs of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire
People from Fenstanton