The Landscape Movement

At the beginning of the 18th Century (1705) the Brompton Nursery, in the centre of London, valued its entire stock of clipped evergreen trees and shrubs at £40,000.    The plants were sold at 1 penny per plant so they probably had more the 9,600,000 plants.    

The demand for topiary was huge, but soon to become unfashionable when the change to landscape gardens took place.   The landscape garden movement was greatly influenced by two men William Kent (1685-1748), in the first quarter of the 18th Century, and Lancelot (Capability) Brown (1716-1782) in the second half of the century.

The Enclosures Acts from 1830, when common land was enclosed in walled or hedged fields, changed the face of the landscape.

The large houses developed country parks with the help of the Ha Ha - a walled bank made by cutting the ground away to form a large sunken area.   Taking the place of a fence the Ha Ha could not be seen from the house and had the effect of joining the house to the landscape, keeping grazing cattle under control.

Walled Gardens for the growing of fruit, vegetables and flowers for the house became fashionable and necessary to protect exotic non-native species introduced from the Americas, Africa, the Australasias and Asia.

By the end of the 18th Century smaller gardens, owned by the upper middle class and landed gentry, needed a smaller scale.    Humphrey Repton (1752-1818), an admirer of Capability Brown, created the fashionable landscaped ideas in smaller detail and would draw picturesque "before and after" views of gardens in his Red Book to show the client how the garden would look.    He reintroduced terraces with low trellis fences and small formal gardens to separate the Park from the house and added features such as an island flowerbed, a shrubbery, decorative urns and statues.


Lancelot (Capability) Brown (1716-1782)

The Romantic and Picturesque Movement influenced garden design when "Romantics" saw and felt things brilliantly afresh.   They virtually reinvented certain landscapes - the Lakes, the Alps, the bays of Italy.   Romantics searched for the sublime and were strenuous walkers, hill climbers, sea bathers and river lovers. 

The 18th Century saw the rise of Pleasure grounds, the forerunners of Public Parks.    The Vauxhall Gardens in London being the most famous.

The Royal Horticultural Society came into being in 1804.   A meeting took place on 7th March 1804 at Hatchard's Bookshop in Piccadilly, London.   The Chairman of the meeting was John Wedgewood.   Also present was:

William Townsend Aiton, Superintendent of Kew Gardens;

Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society;

James Dickson, a nurseryman;

William Forsyth, Superintendent of the gardens of St. James's Palace and Kensington Palace;

Charles Francis Greville, a Lord of the Admiralty;

Richard Anthony Salisbury, Secretary of the new society.  

The new "club" was originally known as the Horticultural Society and is now Britain's greatest gardening charity.

In 1826 horticultural journalism began with The Gardeners Magazine edited by John Loudon with contributions from scientists and working gardeners.

The Age of Exploration opened up new frontiers and revealed plants that amazed European eyes.   Pressed specimens of flowers were collected and seeds were returned to Britain, but the life expectancy of living plants transported on the sailing ships was almost nil.   It has been estimated that one plant in a thousand survived the long voyage from Australia to England.

Early plant hunters tried various methods to get living specimens back to Europe.    The Wardian case invented by Doctor Nathanial Bagshaw Ward, in 1829, was a closed glass case instrumental in transporting many live plants from South America, China, Australia, India and other far off lands safely to Europe.

Several historic house in Cumbria developed their gardens in the 18th Century and in my next blog post we will explore some of them together. 

Comments

  1. Kathryn Willcox28 April 2021 at 12:19

    I get upset when I see struggling plants in Supermarkets, and often ask staff to rescue them, so to read the estimated one in a thousand survival rate is really depressing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Val Abraham1 May 2021 at 14:35

      The plants did come a long way so perhaps today we should always buy plants propagated and grown in the UK x

      Delete

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