When asked why he had not created landscapes abroad, Brown replied that he had not finished redesigning England. Were his radical improvements visionary or vandalism? We will analyse Brown’s work from 1741 until his death in 1783, landscapes designed as settings for a variety of houses and garden buildings (some designed by him), implementing the latest in agricultural methods as well as evocatively exploiting architectural landmarks such as churches and abbey ruins.
There are over 250 sites associated with him, of which we will examine nine in detail. Firstly, we will set the scene by going back to his birthplace, Kirkharle in Northumberland and forward to his final property at Fenstanton in Cambridgeshire. We will trace the roots of the English approach to creating informal landscapes for classically inspired building that prepared the ground arguably perfected by Brown. William Kent was a key influence at pastoral and political Stowe in Buckinghamshire where Brown was employed from 1741. Croome Court in Worcestershire provides a magnificent exemplar of all his design skills. The canvas of Prior Park, Bath allows a study of stone, location and poetry providing an engaging contrast with the mining wealth of the Devonshires and Browns landscaping at Chatsworth in Derbyshire.
Brown’s career reached an apogee when he was appointed Surveyor to His Majesty’s Gardens and Waters. An earlier king had presented the first Duke of Marlborough with the grounds to build Blenheim Palace, fifty years later Brown completed the showcase where the lakes are a sublime testimony. A contemporary grandee, Clive of India, appointed him to improve and complete his Claremont estate. Commissions from the Duke of Northumberland took him back to his roots at Alnwick Castle as well as to Syon Park north of London, the Brownian landscapes setting off the architectural essays of Robert Adam. Lastly, the lost landscape of Rutland’s Belvoir Castle has been reinstated in celebration of the great man’s tricentenary.
Earthmover extraordinaire, hydraulic engineer and builder, indeed a polymath genius, Brown has been described in many ways including the ‘Shakespeare of Gardening’ and ‘Father of Landscape Architecture’.
