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76-502: The Castle Green was landscaped in the late eighteenth century by Capability Brown , but the park itself was laid out from 1873 on by Andrew Pettigrew , head gardener to the 3rd Marquess. In 1947, the 5th Marquess of Bute presented the park to Cardiff County Borough Council . Its successor Cardiff Council still owns and manages it. The park is situated along the east bank of the River Taff and adjoining Cardiff Castle , and offers

152-588: A combination of arboretum, flower gardens and recreation grounds. Most of the park is laid to grassland but there is an abundance of woodland and tree-lined avenues. Sophia Gardens and Pontcanna Fields are on the opposite side of the river, reached by two footbridges. Sophia Gardens is home to the Glamorgan County Cricket Ground , where test matches are played, and to the Sport Wales National Centre . Within

228-477: A comma, and there' pointing to another spot, 'where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon; at another part, where an interruption is desirable to break the view, a parenthesis; now a full stop, and then I begin another subject. ' " Brown's patrons saw the idealised landscapes he was creating for them in terms of the Italian landscape painters they admired and collected, as Kenneth Woodbridge first observed in

304-473: A few ideas of Kent and Mr. Southcote . By the 1760s he was earning on average £6,000 (equivalent to £1,036,000 in 2023) a year, usually £500 (equivalent to £86,300 in 2023) for one commission. As an accomplished rider he was able to work fast, taking only an hour or so on horseback to survey an estate and rough out an entire design. In 1764, Brown was appointed George III 's Master Gardener at Hampton Court Palace , succeeding John Greening and residing at

380-428: A fortunate few; it was the centre of its own world, providing employment to hundreds of people in the vicinity of its estate . In previous eras, when state benefits were unheard of, those working on an estate were among the most fortunate, receiving secured employment and rent-free accommodation. At the summit of this category of people was the indoor staff of the country house. Unlike many of their contemporaries prior to

456-427: A hands-on gardener and provided his clients with a full turnkey service, designing the gardens and park, and then managing their landscaping and planting. He is most famous for the landscaped parks of English country houses , many of which have survived reasonably intact. However, he also included in his plans "pleasure gardens" with flower gardens and the new shrubberies , usually placed where they would not obstruct

532-498: A landscape gardener. As a proponent of the new English style Brown became immensely sought after by the landed families . By 1751, when Brown was beginning to be widely known, Horace Walpole wrote somewhat slightingly of Brown's work at Warwick Castle : The castle is enchanting; the view pleased me more than I can express, the River Avon tumbles down a cascade at the foot of it. It is well laid out by one Brown who has set up on

608-529: A mixture of high architecture , often as interpreted by a local architect or surveyor, and determined by practicality as much as by the whims of architectural taste. An example of this is Brympton d'Evercy in Somerset, a house of many periods that is unified architecturally by the continuing use of the same mellow, local Ham Hill stone . The fashionable William Kent redesigned Rousham House only to have it quickly and drastically altered to provide space for

684-823: A new style within the English landscape, a 'gardenless' form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles. His landscapes were at the forefront of fashion. They were fundamentally different from what they replaced, the well-known formal gardens of England which were criticised by Alexander Pope and others from the 1710s. Starting in 1719, William Kent replaced these with more naturalistic compositions, which reached their greatest refinement in Brown's landscapes. At Hampton Court Brown encountered Hannah More in 1782 and she described his "grammatical" manner in her literary terms: " 'Now there ' said he, pointing his finger, 'I make

760-529: A son in 1754 who died shortly afterwards, Anne who was born and died in 1756, Margaret (known as Peggy) in 1758 and Thomas in 1761. In 1768 he purchased the manor of Fenstanton in Huntingdonshire in East Anglia for £13,000 (equivalent to £2,180,000 in 2023) from Lord Northampton. This came with two manor houses, two villages and 2,668 acres of land. The property stayed in the family until it

836-455: A team of Park Rangers and gardeners based on site, who are supported by volunteers. Capability Brown Lancelot " Capability " Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783) was an English gardener and landscape architect , a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style. Unlike other architects including William Kent , he was

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912-434: A tree here or a concealed head of water there. His art attended to the formal potential of ground, water, trees and so gave to English landscape its ideal forms. The difficulty was that less capable imitators and less sophisticated spectators did not see nature perfected... they saw simply what they took to be nature." This deftness of touch was recognised in his own day; one anonymous obituary writer opined: "Such, however,

988-425: Is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house . This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who dominated rural Britain until

1064-510: Is called a castle, but not all buildings with the name "castle" are fortified (for example Highclere Castle in Hampshire ). The term stately home is subject to debate, and avoided by historians and other academics. As a description of a country house, the term was first used in a poem by Felicia Hemans , "The Homes of England", originally published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1827. In

1140-513: Is clearly seen on the Bute Estate Maps of 1824. In 1833, the line of the mill stream was incorporated as a water source for the development of Cardiff Docks by the 2nd Marquess of Bute and was reformed as the dock feeder when the docks were constructed between 1836 and 1841. The dock feeder is still the main water supply to the docks. Between 1981 and 2019, the park hosted an annual Guy Fawkes Night firework display, named Sparks in

1216-497: Is dead!". Brown was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter and St. Paul, the parish church of Brown's small estate at Fenstanton Manor. He left an estate of approximately £40,000 (equivalent to £6,080,000 in 2023), which included property in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire. His eldest daughter Bridget married the architect Henry Holland . Brown sent two of his sons to Eton . One of them, Lancelot Brown

1292-413: Is overshadowed by his great reputation as a designer of landscapes. Repton was bound to add: "he was inferior to none in what related to the comfort, convenience, taste and propriety of design, in the several mansions and other buildings which he planned". Brown's first country house project was the remodelling of Croome Court , Worcestershire , (1751–52) for the 6th Earl of Coventry , in which instance he

1368-473: Is politics; they talk politics; and they make politics, quite spontaneously. There are no written terms for distinguishing between vast country palaces and comparatively small country houses; the descriptive terms, which can include castle , manor and court , provide no firm clue and are often only used because of a historical connection with the site of such a building. Therefore, for ease or explanation, Britain's country houses can be categorised according to

1444-508: The Reform Act 1832 . Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses . With large numbers of indoor and outdoor staff, country houses were important as places of employment for many rural communities. In turn, until the agricultural depressions of the 1870s , the estates, of which country houses were the hub, provided their owners with incomes. However,

1520-512: The 1850s, with the English economy booming, new mansions were built in one of the many revivalist architectural styles popular throughout the 19th century. The builders of these new houses were able to take advantage of the political unrest in Europe that gave rise to a large trade in architectural salvage. This new wave of country house building is exemplified by the Rothschild properties in

1596-419: The 18th century with houses such as Castle Howard , Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall . Such building reached its zenith from the late 17th century until the mid-18th century; these houses were often completely built or rebuilt in their entirety by one eminent architect in the most fashionable architectural style of the day and often have a suite of Baroque state apartments, typically in enfilade , reserved for

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1672-488: The 20th century, the term was later popularised in a song by Noël Coward , and in modern usage it often implies a country house that is open to visitors at least some of the time. In England, the terms "country house" and "stately home" are sometimes used vaguely and interchangeably; however, many country houses such as Ascott in Buckinghamshire were deliberately designed not to be stately, and to harmonise with

1748-474: The 20th century, they slept in proper beds, wore well-made adequate clothes and received three proper meals a day, plus a small wage. In an era when many still died from malnutrition or lack of medicine, the long working hours were a small price to pay. As a result of the aristocratic habit of only marrying within the aristocracy, and whenever possible to a sole heiress, many owners of country houses owned several country mansions, and would visit each according to

1824-422: The English poet and satirical author, declared that he hoped to die before Brown so that he could "see heaven before it was 'improved'." This was a typical statement reflecting the controversy about Brown's work, which has continued over the last 200 years. By contrast, a recent historian and author, Richard Bisgrove, described Brown's process as perfecting nature by "judicious manipulation of its components, adding

1900-621: The Park in its later years. The event was organised by Cardiff's local branch of Round Table and profits were distributed to charity. The event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and in 2022 it was cancelled indefinitely due to increasing costs and organisational issues. The Cooper's Field part of the park has hosted concerts by artists including Florence and the Machine , You Me at Six and Emeli Sandé . Bute Park and

1976-679: The Wilderness House. In 1767 he bought an estate for himself at Fenstanton in Huntingdonshire from Spencer Compton, 8th Earl of Northampton and was appointed High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire for 1770, although his son Lance carried out most of the duties. It is estimated that Brown was responsible for more than 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain. His work endures at Belvoir Castle , Croome Court (where he also designed

2052-467: The best-known examples of the showy prodigy house , often built with the intention of attracting the monarch to visit. By the reign of Charles I , Inigo Jones and his form of Palladianism had changed the face of English domestic architecture completely, with the use of turrets and towers as an architectural reference to the earlier castles and fortified houses completely disappearing. The Palladian style, in various forms, interrupted briefly by baroque ,

2128-524: The circumstances of their creation. The great houses are the largest of the country houses; in truth palaces, built by the country's most powerful – these were designed to display their owners' power or ambitions to power. Really large unfortified or barely fortified houses began to take over from the traditional castles of the crown and magnates during the Tudor period, with vast houses such as Hampton Court Palace and Burghley House , and continued until

2204-523: The country saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses. Henry VIII 's Dissolution of the Monasteries saw many former ecclesiastical properties granted to the King's favourites, who then converted them into private country houses. Woburn Abbey , Forde Abbey and many other mansions with abbey or priory in their name became private houses during this period. Other terms used in

2280-428: The design of the wing around the next corner. These varying "improvements", often criticised at the time, today are the qualities that make English country houses unique. Wealthy and influential people, often bored with their formal duties, go to the country in order to get out of London, the ugliest and most uncomfortable city in the world; they invented the long week-end to stay away as long as possible. Their métier

2356-427: The early 1970s, hundreds of country houses were demolished . Houses that survived destruction are now mostly Grade I or II listed as buildings of historic interest with restrictions on restoration and re-creation work. However such work is usually very expensive. Several houses have been restored, some over many years. For example at Copped Hall where the restoration started in 1995 continues to this day. Although

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2432-464: The field of architecture was a natural outgrowth of his unified picture of the English country house in its setting: "In Brown's hands the house, which before had dominated the estate, became an integral part of a carefully composed landscape intended to be seen through the eye of a painter, and its design could not be divorced from that of the garden" Humphry Repton observed that Brown "fancied himself an architect", but Brown's work as an architect

2508-561: The founders of the new English style of landscape garden . In 1742, at the age of 26, he was officially appointed Head Gardener, earning £25 (equivalent to £4,900 in 2023) a year and residing in the western Boycott Pavilion. Brown remained at Stowe until 1750. He made the Grecian Valley at Stowe under William Kent's supervision. It is an abstract composition of landform and woodland. Lord Cobham let Brown take freelance work from his aristocratic friends, thus making him well known as

2584-610: The grounds of Cardiff Castle are designated Grade I on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales . From 2007 Cardiff Council undertook a £5.6 million restoration project, which was part-funded by a £3.1 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund . The project provided new facilities and restored historic features in the park, including: The park is maintained by

2660-532: The harmony and calmness of Brown's landscapes was inevitable; the landscapes lacked the sublime thrill which members of the Romantic generation (such as Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price ) looked for in their ideal landscape, where the painterly inspiration would come from Salvator Rosa rather than Claude Lorrain . During the 19th century he was widely criticised, but during the twentieth century his reputation rose again. Tom Turner has suggested that

2736-479: The home counties and Bletchley Park (rebuilt in several styles, and famous for its code-breaking role in World War II). The slow decline of the English country house coincided with the rise not just of taxation, but also of modern industry, along with the agricultural depression of the 1870s. By 1880, this had led some owners into financial shortfalls as they tried to balance maintenance of their estates with

2812-423: The house), Blenheim Palace , Warwick Castle , Harewood House , Chatsworth , Highclere Castle , Appuldurcombe House , Milton Abbey (and nearby Milton Abbas village) and in traces at Kew Gardens and many other locations. His style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scatterings of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers were

2888-435: The household. These houses were always an alternative residence to a London house. During the 18th and 19th centuries, for the highest echelons of English society, the country house served as a place for relaxing, hunting and running the country with one's equals at the end of the week, with some houses having their own theatre where performances were staged. The country house, however, was not just an oasis of pleasure for

2964-556: The immediately preceding war then in World War I, were now paying far higher rates of tax, and agricultural incomes had dropped. Thus, the solution for many was to hold contents auctions and then demolish the house and sell its stone, fireplaces , and panelling . This is what happened to many of Britain's finest houses. Despite this slow decline, so necessary was the country house for entertaining and prestige that in 1917 Viscount Lee of Fareham donated his country house Chequers to

3040-438: The income they provided. Some relied on funds from secondary sources such as banking and trade while others, like the severely impoverished Duke of Marlborough , sought to marry American heiresses to save their country houses and lifestyles. The ultimate demise began immediately following World War I . The members of the huge staff required to maintain large houses had either left to fight and never returned, departed to work in

3116-636: The issues facing the survival of these landscapes as well as suggested solutions. A commemorative fountain in Westminster Abbey ’s cloister garth was dedicated for Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown after Evensong on Tuesday 29 May 2018 by the Dean of Westminster , Dr John Hall . The fountain sits over an old monastic well in the garth. It was designed by Ptolemy Dean , the Abbey's Surveyor of the Fabric , and

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3192-696: The landscape at Stourhead , a "Brownian" landscape (with an un-Brownian circuit walk) in which Brown himself was not involved. Perhaps Brown's sternest critic was his contemporary Uvedale Price , who likened Brown's clumps of trees to "so many puddings turned out of one common mould." Russell Page , who began his career in the Brownian landscape of Longleat but whose own designs have formal structure, accused Brown of "encouraging his wealthy clients to tear out their splendid formal gardens and replace them with his facile compositions of grass, tree clumps and rather shapeless pools and lakes." Richard Owen Cambridge ,

3268-491: The landscape, while some of the great houses such as Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall were built as "power houses" to dominate the landscape, and were most certainly intended to be "stately" and impressive. In his book Historic Houses: Conversations in Stately Homes , the author and journalist Robert Harling documents nineteen "stately homes"; these range in size from the vast Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard to

3344-415: The late 19th and early 20th centuries were the swansong of the traditional English country house lifestyle. Increased taxation and the effects of World War I led to the demolition of hundreds of houses ; those that remained had to adapt to survive. While a château or a Schloss can be a fortified or unfortified building, a country house, similar to an Ansitz , is usually unfortified. If fortified, it

3420-621: The latter resulted from a favourable account of his talent in Marie-Luise Gothein 's History of Garden Art which predated Christopher Hussey 's positive account of Brown in The Picturesque (1927). Dorothy Stroud wrote the first full monograph on Capability Brown, fleshing out the generic attributions with documentation from country house estate offices. Later landscape architects like William Sawrey Gilpin would opine that Brown's 'natural curves' were as artificial as

3496-544: The latter two are ducal palaces, Montacute, although built by a Master of the Rolls to Queen Elizabeth I, was occupied for the next 400 years by his descendants, who were gentry without a London townhouse , rather than aristocracy. They finally ran out of funds in the early 20th century. However, the vast majority of English country houses, often owned at different times by gentlemen and peers , are an evolution of one or more styles with facades and wings in different styles in

3572-439: The main house in a sea of turf, some water, albeit often an impressive feature, and trees in clumps and shelterbelts", giving "a uniformity equating to authoritarianism" and showing a lack of imagination and even taste on the part of his patrons. He designed more than 170 parks, many of which survive. He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement. His influence

3648-404: The master builder Henry Holland, and by Henry's son Henry Holland the architect , whose initial career Brown supported; the younger Holland was increasingly Brown's full collaborator and became Brown's son-in-law in 1773. Brown's reputation declined rapidly after his death, because the English landscape style did not convey the dramatic conflict and awesome power of wild nature. A reaction against

3724-655: The minuscule Ebberston Hall , and in architecture from the Jacobean Renaissance of Hatfield House to the eccentricities of Sezincote . The book's collection of stately homes also includes George IV's Brighton town palace, the Royal Pavilion . The country houses of England have evolved over the last five hundred years. Before this time, larger houses were usually fortified, reflecting the position of their owners as feudal lords , de facto overlords of their manors . The Tudor period of stability in

3800-416: The most eminent guests, the entertainment of whom was of paramount importance in establishing and maintaining the power of the owner. The common denominator of this category of English country houses is that they were designed to be lived in with a certain degree of ceremony and pomp. It was not unusual for the family to have a small suite of rooms for withdrawing in privacy away from the multitude that lived in

3876-399: The munitions factories, or filled the void left by the fighting men in other workplaces. Of those who returned after the war, many left the countryside for better-paid jobs in towns. The final blow for many country houses came following World War II ; having been requisitioned during the war, they were returned to the owners in poor repair. Many estate owners, having lost their heirs, if not in

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3952-468: The names of houses to describe their origin or importance include palace , castle , court , hall , mansion , park , house , manor , and place . It was during the second half of the reign of Elizabeth I , and under her successor, James I , that the first architect-designed mansions, thought of today as epitomising the English country house, began to make their appearance. Burghley House , Longleat House , and Hatfield House are among

4028-454: The nation for the use of a prime minister who might not possess one of his or her own. Chequers still fulfills that need today as do both Chevening House and Dorneywood , donated for sole use of high-ranking ministers of the Crown. Today, many country houses have become hotels, schools, hospitals and museums, while others have survived as conserved ruins, but from the early 20th century until

4104-468: The owner of a "power house" or a small manor, the inhabitants of the English country house have become collectively referred to as the ruling class, because this is exactly what they did in varying degrees, whether by having high political influence and power in national government, or in the day-to-day running of their own localities or "county" in such offices as lord/deputy lieutenant , magistrates , or occasionally even clergy. The Country house mystery

4180-529: The owner's twelve children. Canons Ashby , home to poet John Dryden 's family, is another example of architectural evolution: a medieval farmhouse enlarged in the Tudor era around a courtyard, given grandiose plaster ceilings in the Stuart period , and then having Georgian façades added in the 18th century. The whole is a glorious mismatch of styles and fashions that seamlessly blend together. These could be called

4256-512: The ownership or management of some houses has been transferred to a private trust , most notably at Chatsworth , other houses have transferred art works and furnishings under the Acceptance in Lieu scheme to ownership by various national or local museums, but retained for display in the building. This enables the former owners to offset tax, the payment of which would otherwise have necessitated

4332-504: The park there are sculptures such as wood carvings formed from retained tree stumps (in 2012, a series of additional carvings were commissioned as part of the Restoration Project) which encourage natural play. An ironwork sundial, originally placed in the park in 1990 after a Festival of Iron event, was removed in 2006 and replaced by a small, round formal garden to honour Stuttgart (Cardiff's German twin town ). This feature

4408-462: The private sale of the art works. For example, tapestries and furniture at Houghton Hall are now owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum . In addition, increasing numbers of country houses hold licences for weddings and civil ceremonies . Another source of income is to use the house as a venue for parties, a film location or a corporate entertainment venue. While many country houses are open to

4484-472: The public and derive income through that means, they remain homes, in some cases inhabited by the descendants of their original owners. The lifestyles of those living and working in a country house in the early 20th century were recreated in a BBC television programme, The Edwardian Country House , filmed at Manderston House in Scotland. Another television programme which features life in country houses

4560-519: The season: Grouse shooting in Scotland , pheasant shooting and fox hunting in England. The Earl of Rosebery , for instance, had Dalmeny House in Scotland, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, and another house near Epsom just for the racing season. For many, this way of life, which began a steady decline in 1914, continued well into the 20th century, and for a few continues to this day. In

4636-444: The second category of Britain's country houses are those that belonged to the squirearchy or landed gentry . These tend either to have evolved from medieval hall houses, with rooms added as required, or were purpose-built by relatively unknown local architects. Smaller, and far greater in number than the "power houses", these were still the epicentre of their own estate, but were often the only residence of their owner. However, whether

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4712-620: The straight lines that were common in French gardens. Brown's portrait by Nathaniel Dance , c. 1773, is conserved in the National Portrait Gallery , London. His work has often been favourably compared and contrasted ("the antithesis") to the œuvre of André Le Nôtre , the French jardin à la française landscape architect. He became both "rich and honoured and had 'improved' a greater acreage of ground than any landscape architect" who preceded him. A festival to celebrate

4788-558: The tercentenary of Brown's birth was held in 2016. The Capability Brown Festival 2016 published a large amount of new research on Brown's work and held over 500 events across Britain as part of the celebrations. Royal Mail issued a series of Landscape Stamps in his honour in August 2016. The Gardens Trust with support from Historic England , published Vulnerability Brown: Capability Brown landscapes at risk in October 2017 to review

4864-493: The true English country house. Wilton House , one of England's grandest houses, is in a remarkably similar vein; although, while the Drydens, mere squires, at Canons Ashby employed a local architect, at Wilton the mighty Earls of Pembroke employed the finest architects of the day: first Holbein , 150 years later Inigo Jones, and then Wyatt followed by Chambers. Each employed a different style of architecture, seemingly unaware of

4940-401: The views across the park of and from the main facades of the house. Few of his plantings of "pleasure gardens" have survived later changes. He also submitted plans for much smaller urban projects, for example the college gardens along The Backs at Cambridge . Criticism of his style, both in his own day and subsequently, mostly centres on the claim that "he created 'identikit' landscapes with

5016-554: The younger, became the MP for Huntingdon . His son John joined the Royal Navy and rose to become an admiral. Many of Capability Brown's parks and gardens may still be visited today. A partial list of the landscapes he designed or worked on includes: More than 30 of the gardens are open to the public. [REDACTED] Media related to Capability Brown at Wikimedia Commons English country house An English country house

5092-441: Was 16. Brown's father, William Brown, had been Sir William Loraine ’s land agent and his mother, Ursula (née Hall ), had been in service at Kirkharle Hall . His eldest brother, John, became the estate surveyor and later married Sir William's daughter. His older brother George became a mason-architect. After school Lancelot worked as the head gardener's apprentice at Sir William Loraine 's kitchen garden at Kirkharle Hall until he

5168-459: Was 23. In 1739 he journeyed south to the port of Boston , Lincolnshire . Then he moved further inland, where his first landscape commission was for a new lake in the park at Kiddington Hall , Oxfordshire . He moved to Wotton Underwood House , Buckinghamshire , seat of Sir Richard Grenville. In 1741 Brown joined Lord Cobham 's gardening staff as undergardener at Stowe Gardens , Buckinghamshire , where he worked under William Kent , one of

5244-520: Was a popular genre of English detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s; set in the residence of the gentry and often involving a murder in a country house temporarily isolated by a snowstorm or similar with the suspects all at a weekend house party. Following the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, a third category of country houses was built as newly rich industrialists and bankers were eager to display their wealth and taste. By

5320-580: Was designed by the Parks Service in Stuttgart and planted by horticultural apprentices from both cities as part of a programme of exchange visits between the two parks departments. The dock feeder canal runs along the eastern edge of the park. Its origins go back to medieval times when it was a millstream, constructed to feed the Lord's Mill, situated below the western walls of Cardiff Castle. This line

5396-523: Was developed with the assistance of gardener Alan Titchmarsh . The fountain was made in lead by sculptor Brian Turner. On 22 November 1744 he married Bridget Wayet (affectionately called Biddy) from Boston, Lincolnshire , in Stowe parish church. Her father was an alderman and landowner while her family had surveyors and engineers among its members. They had eight children: Bridget in 1746, Lancelot (known as Lance), William (who died young), John in 1751,

5472-418: Was likely following sketches by the gentleman amateur Sanderson Miller . Fisherwick, Staffordshire, Redgrave Hall, Suffolk, and Claremont , Surrey, were classical, while at Corsham his outbuildings are in a Gothic vein, including the bathhouse . Gothic stable blocks and decorative outbuildings, arches and garden features constituted many of his designs. From 1771 he was assisted in the technical aspects by

5548-467: Was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors Charles Bridgeman and William Kent are often overlooked; even Kent's champion Horace Walpole allowed that Kent "was succeeded by a very able master". Lancelot Brown was the fifth child of a land agent and a chambermaid , born in the village of Kirkharle , Northumberland , and educated at a school in Cambo until he

5624-526: Was sold in lots in 1870s and 1880s. Ownership of the property allowed him to stand for and serve as High sheriff of Huntingdonshire from 1770 to 1771. He continued to work and travel until his sudden collapse and death on 6 February 1783, on the doorstep of his daughter Bridget Holland's house, at 6 Hertford Street , London while returning after a night out at Lord Coventry's. Horace Walpole wrote to Lady Ossory : "Your dryads must go into black gloves, Madam, their father-in-law, Lady Nature’s second husband,

5700-452: Was the effect of his genius that when he was the happiest man, he will be least remembered; so closely did he copy nature that his works will be mistaken." In 1772, Sir William Chambers (though he did not mention Brown by name) complained that the "new manner" of gardens "differ very little from common fields, so closely is vulgar nature copied in most of them." Capability Brown produced more than 100 architectural drawings, and his work in

5776-422: Was to predominate until the second half of the 18th century when, influenced by ancient Greek styles, it gradually evolved into the neoclassicism championed by such architects as Robert Adam . Some of the best known of England's country houses were the work of only one architect/designer, built in a relatively short, particular time: Montacute House , Chatsworth House , and Blenheim Palace are examples. While

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