Painswick Rococo Garden, Thomas Robins the Elder 1748

Painswick House is a

grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

house in

Painswick Painswick is a town and civil parish in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, England. Originally the town grew from the wool trade, but it is now best known for its parish church's yew trees and the local Rococo Garden. The village is mainly ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. It is surrounded by a Grade II* listed

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

garden. The house and a range of outbuildings were built in the 1730s by Charles Hyett to escape the smog of

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

but Hyett died in 1738 not long after moving there. He demolished an earlier farmhouse which stood on the site. It was originally known as "Buenos Ayres". Around 1830 the house was extended by

George Basevi Elias George Basevi FRS (1 April 1794 – 16 October 1845) was a British architect who worked in both Neoclassical and Gothic Revival styles. A pupil of Sir John Soane, his designs included Belgrave Square in London, and the Fitzwilliam Muse ...

adding the east and west wings. The

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

building has tiled roofs. The nine-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

front has a central door set in an Ionic porch with a pediment. The interior of the building has many original fireplaces and makes extensive use of

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s for decoration. The grounds include the Painswick Rococo Garden, as it is now known, which was laid out by Charles's oldest son Benjamin Hyett II (1708-62) (brother of Nicholas Hyett, constable and keeper of the Castle of Gloucester). The garden was painted by Thomas Robins the Elder in 1748. Robins's painting allowed the garden to be restored in the 1990s under the direction of Painswick's owner, Lord Dickinson, who inherited the house in 1955. The garden is the only surviving garden of the

period which is open to the public. It was designed and laid out in the 1740s. The garden has been restored since 1984 having been abandoned in the 1950s. It includes woodland, flower and vegetable plots, garden buildings and a maze. Several

snowdrop ''Galanthus'' (from Ancient Greek , (, "milk") + (, "flower")), or snowdrop, is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single sm ...

s, particularly ''Galanthus'' 'Atkinsii' are found in the grounds. There are a series of ponds and streams on the slopes of the valley with small waterfalls.

References

External links

* {{coord, 51.79268, -2.19955, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade I listed houses in Gloucestershire Painswick Hyett family Grade II* listed parks and gardens in Gloucestershire