R&S Pride JULY 228.qxp 10/06/2021 09:59 Page 32
CAPABILITY BROWN’S LANDSCAPES
Capability Brown’s
GREAT LANDSCAPES His name is synonymous with the most well-established country estates in England. His legacy is rolling parkland and rivers that meander towards expansive lakes. Capability Brown, in the 18th century, forever changed the way that our stately homes look… IF YOU’D GATHERED TOGETHER a few guineas in the 18th century, you’d probably treat yourself to whatever enormous country pile came on the market, or commission a grand country home yourself. And once you’d created a place with suitably grand Georgian proportions and lavish interiors, you’d probably want to entrust the design of its surrounding parkland to the equally instantly recognisable style of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. Brown was born in Northumberland around 1715 and died in 1783. During that time, he designed a remarkable 250 country estates of which 150 survive today. Schooled in the area he was apprenticed to the head gardener of Sir William Loraine, at Kirkharle Hall, once a vast farming estate and today a more modest country property converted into a series of galleries, craft shops and restaurants. Kirkharle’s estate was one over which Brown effected a great transformation. But it was only after he’d ventured down here to Boston and met his future wife Bridget Wayet – Biddy – in 1744 that he spread his wings. Brown ventured inland and joined Lord Cobham’s staff at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, where he was appointed head gardener at 26, in 1742, remaining there until 1750. Cobham allowed Capability Brown to undertake commissions from his aristocratic friends, and soon he had designed parkland at Belvoir Castle, Burghley House and at Grimsthorpe Castle near Bourne as well as the great
English country estates of Blenheim Palace, Highclere Castle and Hampton Court. The English religious writer Hannah More worked alongside Capability Brown at Hampton, and described how Capability Brown used grammatical metaphors to describe the features of his landscapes – commas, a colon, parenthesis or a full stop – depending on where he wanted the eye to rest. His vernacular was smooth undulating areas of grass, belts and scatterings of trees and serpentine lakes. Favouring parkland instead of areas of formal gardens was a vast contrast to his forebears like Alexander Pope. In addition to his eye for landscapes Brown was also a skilled water engineer and could create complex land drainage schemes for his lakes and rivers. Capability Brown would introduce ha-has, long curved drives, boat houses and ice houses, and would alternate clumps of native trees like oak, beech and chestnut with newly imported exotics such as cedar of Lebanon, which would become his signature tree. Capability Brown’s success would have netted him over £20m in today’s money, but though he was driven and very much in demand, he’s reported to have maintained his easy-going nature throughout his career, and he dearly loved his wife and seven children. He did, however, suffer badly from bouts of illness, not least among which was asthma, and died aged 67.
Words: Rob Davis.
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Burghley House Capability Brown’s association with Burghley House was the longest in the landscaper’s history. His transformation of the country estate’s landscape began when Brownlow Cecil, the 9th Earl of Exeter, inherited the estate in 1754. Unusually, Brown was hired not only to update the grounds of the country estate but to create the stableblocks and the estate’s orangery, indulging the Cecil family’s passion for exotic horticulture with the use of floor-to-ceiling windows, providing excellent views of the formal gardens but also exposing to space to lots of natural light. The restoration of the five-acre sculpture gardens in 1994 reclaimed Capability Brown’s domed ice house, limestone cliff and Swallow’s Rill, a gulley which serves as an overflow for the estate’s lake. Brown’s lake covered 11 acres; it was expanded by the end of the 18th century by the 10th Earl. The estate’s deer park was also the vision of Capability Brown, as were the estate’s balustrade bridge and its Coade stone lions. Pilsgate Lodges, Bottle Lodges and the Queen Elizabeth Gate were all post-Capability Brown additions, though created by landscapers like Stamford’s W Legg from around 1801. Grimsthorpe Castle The landscape architect’s contribution to Bourne’s Grimsthorpe Castle was thought to be one of his earliest commissions, for Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster. In 1741 the estate was remodelled with the
