Our journey through Garden History has taken us into the 18th century. There was so much of interest that we have divided it into 3 six-week sections. We looked firstly at the very late 17th century and early decades of the 18th, then at events and ideas of the mid-century and in this the final part will look at the Landscape Garden itself.

Part Three

.....

This ticket is for the entire course of 6 sessions.

[Due to a recent Apple decision to charge a 30% fee for paid online events unfortunately you may no longer be able to purchase this ticket from the Eventbrite iOS app. Please use a web browser on desktop or mobile to purchase, or follow the link here.]

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the first talk, which will be the same link throughout (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

…..

Provisional outline programme (each talk will be approximately 1 hour, with additional time allowed for Q & A afterwards):

Week 1, 13 January. 'Lancelot Brown - the Idol of the Age': the difference between 'Capability' and his 'place-making' contemporaries with Steffie Shields

This lecture will consider the enduring impact and engineering scale of Brown’s labours in the story of the English landscape garden, and whether he left his C18 contemporaries in improvement standing as he raced ‘to finish England’. Having encountered, early on in his career, significant works by Switzer, Vanbrugh, Bridgeman, Gibbs and Kent, Brown went on to collaborate with leading architects such as William Chambers at Peper Harow, Robert Adams at Croome and James Paine at Sandbeck. Could it be that Horace Walpole’s amusing, oft-repeated nickname for the driven designer, ‘Capability, is in truth an understatement?

Week 2, 20 January. Joseph Banks and Kew with David Marsh

Joseph Banks is one of the most significant figures in all of botanic and garden history. A true figure of the Enlightenment he made botany and plant collecting an agent of change. Obsessed with plants from an early age he accompanied Cook as he circumnavigated the world and ‘discovered’ Australia, with the famous landing at Botany Bay. He saw how global exploration and empire building could be used to move plants round the world to the economic benefit of Britain. This led to his masterminding the beginnings of Kew as a garden of world-wide importance at the centre of a network of plant hunters and colonial botanic gardens. But this was not in isolation. He was President of the Royal Society for over 40 years and encouraged and patronised scientific activity all over the world. His enormous library and herbarium, open to anyone, made his home in Soho Square one of the scientific and social centres of Georgian London.

Week 3, 27 January. ‘Wishing you a pleasant tour’: Travel and Landscape, c.1700-1820 with Louise Crawley

Often overshadowed by the glamour of the Grand Tour, the long eighteenth century saw the beginnings and exponential growth of domestic tourism in the British Isles amongst the upper echelons of society. As well as the wider countryside, the designed landscapes of great estates throughout Britain became essential destinations for travellers of the ‘domestic tour’. Meticulously kept travel diaries and correspondence offer a wealth of insights into thoughts, opinions – and sometimes unsolicited recommendations of improvements – on landscape. This lecture will explore the phenomenon of domestic travel and designed landscapes as destinations, the travellers themselves and the paper trails they left behind.

Week 4, 3 February. The Picturesque part 1 with David Marsh

We all know what the picturesque means don’t we ? The English Landscape gardens of designers like Capability Brown came under attack for being bland and unimaginative, and lacking in ‘emotion’. Critics wanted landscapes that inspired feelings of awe and wonder, and even terror in the observer, or which resembled paintings by great classical artists like Claude, Poussin or Rosa. Yet Brown himself clearly appreciated the pictorial possibilities of a site, on one occasion discussing ideas which were ‘exactly fit for the painter’ and of course his work was the subject of paintings. Brown [and of course others] were responsible for the transformation of the English landscape to the point where Horace Walpole commented that ‘every journey is made through a succession of pictures’. So what is the picturesque?

Week 5, 10 February. The Picturesque part 2 with David Marsh

This will be a continuation of the previous week, looking at ideas of ‘The Sublime’, ‘The Romantic’ and ‘The Beautiful’ through their exponents William Gilpin, Uvedale Price, Richard Payne Knight and others, as well as contemporary literature and paintings.

Week 6, 17 February. Humphry Repton with Tom Williamson

Humphry Repton was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown. But he was also a pioneer of new styles for a new middle class clientele.

How far was Humphry Repton’s style of landscape design different from that of previous practitioners? What explains his approach to landscapes? Why was he so successful as a designer, yet not as a businessman? And how much did his style change in the course of his career? These, and other key questions, will be addressed in this broad reappraisal of one of England’s most important landscape gardeners.

…..

Steffie Shields M.B.E. is a professional garden photographer, writer, and historic landscape consultant. A passion for the works of 'Capability' Brown began when she was living near Alnwick, Northumberland, following the devastation caused to his landscapes in the south by the1987 hurricane. After many subsequent moves, courtesy her husband's peripatetic R.A.F. career, this led eventually to publishing her illustrated book Moving Heaven and Earth: Capability Brown's Gift of Landscape (Unicorn Press) recognised as a Garden Media Guild Awards finalist for ‘Inspirational Book of the Year 2016’. A former Cambridge tutor, (ICE Madingley, Cambridge 2007-2016), and an advisor to the ‘Capability’ Brown Tercentenary Festival, Steffie was also co-curator, with Hal Moggridge OBE, of a contemporary photography exhibition: ‘Lenses on a Landscape Genius - Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’ (London 2016). A Vice-President of the Gardens Trust, and chair, Lincolnshire Gardens Trust, in 2018 Steffie was awarded the M.B.E for services to conservation and heritage.

…..

After a career as a head teacher in Inner London, David Marsh took very early retirement (the best thing he ever did) and returned to education on his own account and did an MA and then a PhD in garden history. Now he lectures on garden history anywhere that will listen to him and helps organize the Garden History Seminar at London University’s Institute of Historical Research. He is co-chair of the Education and Events Committee of The Gardens Trust, for whom he organises courses and writes a weekly garden history blog which you can find at The Gardens Trust Blog.

…..

Louise Crawley is a member of the Norfolk Gardens Trust and the Norfolk Gardens Trust Research Group. She is a postgraduate researcher of eighteenth-century perceptions of landscape at the University of East Anglia, supervised by Professor Tom Williamson.

…..

Tom Williamson is Professor of Landscape History at the University of East Anglia and has written widely on landscape archaeology, historical ecology, and the history of parks and gardens. His book Humphry Repton: Landscape Design in an Age of Revolution, was published in 2020.

The Landscape Garden