Capability Brown's Lincolnshire landscapes
The National Geographic list of must-see places for 2016 includes the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the beaches of Brazil and the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. All amazing destinations but no real surprises.
Except maybe one. There is a less expected item on the list, one no less deserving and much closer to home - ‘Capability’ Brown’s gardens.
These are described by the NG in their Top 20 run down as ”…filled with sparkling lakes, softly sloping lawns, winding paths, and carefully framed views, Brown's gardens are as ingrained in the British psyche as the novels of Jane Austen.”
It’s amazing then that you can see some, including one of the best, right here in Lincolnshire.
Of the 200 or so commissions Brown undertook in his 30 year career Burghley House, near Stamford, is one of the finest examples of his work and was his longest commission, lasting 25 years from 1754 to 1779.
His landscapes also include most of the grand estates of England, places like Blenheim Palace, Stowe and Hampton Court - Brown only worked on a grand scale. Even if you have never heard of him nor knowingly visited one of his parklands, the landscapes he created would feel very familiar.
The basic ingredients of a Brownian landscape – large lawns merging into pasture grazed by cattle, lakes crossed by classical bridges and sinuous woodland converging on a folly in the distance – have a simple and natural look that barely hints at the enormous effort, both financial and physical, that was required to create them.
What Brown did was revolutionary. Sweeping away the rigid formality of the renaissance gardens, he began the English Landscape Movement, an entirely new vision which became replicated around the world.
By all accounts he got on well with the 9th Earl of Exeter and enjoyed a freedom at Burghley to extend his repertoire into architecture, making alterations to the house itself. That close relationship may also explain why Burghley is home to one of only two portraits that exist of Brown.
In fact Brown’s connection with Lincolnshire began 15 years earlier when the ambitious 23 year old Northumberland lad arrived at Boston, in 1737, then England’s second port after London.
The reason for his move, according to Steffie Shields, a Lincolnshire based expert on Brown was an Act of Parliament calling on engineers to help with the great land reclamation project underway in Fens.
He meet his future wife, Bridget Wayet, the daughter of a Boston apothecary, during this time and cut his landscaping teeth at Grimsthorpe Castle in the south of the county. Here he undertook drainage and hydraulic water works and gained an important reputation as an engineer.
In 1742 he headed south to become head gardener at Stowe in Buckinghamshire and so began his rise to become the country’s preeminent landscape designer. Aside from Burghley he returned to Lincolnshire for commissions at Brocklesby in the north and Hainton in the East.
He also re-visited Grimsthorpe, in 1772, to work again for his old patron, the Duke of Ancaster, and much of the ‘improvements’ he made to landscape then can still be seen.
This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of England’s most influential landscape designer, and in celebration a festival of his work is underway. Thanks to a £1 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund it will be possible to visit private estates not normally open to the public, join tours and attend talks.
If it’s good enough for the National Geographic, it’s good enough for me.
For more information about the Capability Brown Festival 2016 visit the website.
An exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Capability Brown is being hosted at Burghley House throughout the year, along with tours and talks.
Steffie Shields will be speaking about Brown at the Lincoln History Group on Wednesday 18 May 2016 and her book about Brown, ‘Moving Heaven & Earth’, is also due to be printed in May.