The creation of gardens large or small depended on a combination of architecture, horticulture, botany, archaeology, art, politics and a fertile imagination. All these themes will be explored in relation to our case studies as we explore a selection of gardens that reflect the key trends in garden design and creation during the 18th century. The formal garden style which had evolved in Italy and France in the 17th century continued to dominate British garden creation until the mid-18th century.
However, the growing discontent, with this rigid formality cleared the way for a fresh approach in garden design. Topiary, symmetry and parterres fell out of fashion as nature came to be seen as something to be emulated, not subdued. This impetus came from the new found love of country life and the rural idyll as advocated by landscape designer Stephen Switzer.
The shift in political power in the early 18th century, from the crown to that of the landed aristocracy produced a new and ‘Polite Society’ who embarked on a campaign of remodelling or building grand new country houses with even grander gardens and landscape to match. Throughout the long 18th century, many beautiful and varied landscapes were created and have survived for the garden historian to explore.
We will look at the various trends in the first half of the 18th century which introduced rustic, Chinese and gothic elements into the garden as well as venturing into the delightful frivolity of the Rococo garden and the flower filled ornamental farm or Ferme ornee established by the designer Philip Southcote as a variation on landscape garden. The trickle of new and exotic plants from newly explored regions became a fast-flowing stream which instigated an interest in botany and horticulture leading to the expansion of the nursery trade.
Ancient Greek notions of the Arcadian pastoral landscape influenced eighteenth-century landscape gardens. We will explore how the fashionable Grand tour around Europe influenced Britain’s cultural, social and architectural development including the creation of gardens. Enthused by the distant hills, groves of trees and ancient ruins gleaned in Italy from the paintings of artists such as Claude Lorrain, Nicholas Poussin and Salvator Rosa, the grand tourist returned laden with newly commissioned artworks and pilfered statuary from ancient sites, sought to replicate these vast arcadian landscapes on their estates.
We will also look at the ambitious plans of talented ‘amateur’ garden designers who created their own unique gardens and landscapes often on a more human scale while shunning the craze for planting countless avenues marching far into the horizon. During this course we will examine how classical authors like Pliny the Younger and Ovid influenced contemporary intellectuals and commentators such as Alexander Pope and Joseph Addison leading garden makers like Switzer, Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, Lancelot Brown and others to create some of the most enduring and iconic landscapes of our time.
Lancelot Brown who took the landscape style one stage further has been accused of being the vandal who ‘swept away’ the beautiful formal gardens of the early 18th century. But was he a Vandal or a Visionary? You can decide, as we follow the course of the landscape garden.