Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively

Author:Penelope Lively
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241982174
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-08-11T04:00:00+00:00

Lancelot Brown – ‘Capability’, from his practice of announcing the ‘capability’, the potential, of a landscape – had got going by the middle of the eighteenth century, and by the time of his death in 1783 had had his way with estates including Chatsworth, Blenheim, Petworth and many others. He was a gardener by training, and honed his landscaping skills at Stowe, setting up his own business in due course, as both consultant and contractor. The general principle of his designs was simplicity, undulating ground with an expanse of grass reaching away to a lake or stream, clumps or belts of trees softening the contours of the land, all this sweeping away the clutter of formal gardens. If the contours were insufficiently pleasing, adjustments would be made – hills scooped aside, rivers dammed to create a lake – while grazing cattle would be kept away from the precincts of the mansion with a ha-ha. If there happened to be obtrusive buildings, a cottage or two, a whole village, then away with them also. A makeover by Brown was extensive, expensive, and essential if you were to make the grade as the modern landowner of an impressive estate.

In Headlong Hall, Thomas Love Peacock rolled Brown and Repton into one with his creation of Marmaduke Milestone, ‘a picturesque landscape gardener of the first celebrity’:

‘My dear sir,’ said Mr Milestone, ‘accord me your permission to wave the wand of enchantment over your grounds. The rocks shall be blown up, the trees shall be cut down, the wilderness and all its goats shall vanish like mist. Pagodas and Chinese bridges, gravel walks and shrubberies, bowling-greens, canals, and clumps of larch, shall rise upon its ruins. One age, sir, has brought to light the treasures of ancient learning; a second has penetrated into the depths of metaphysics; a third has brought to perfection the science of astronomy; but it was reserved for the exclusive genius of the present times, to invent the noble art of picturesque gardening, which has given, as it were, a new tint to the complexion of nature, and a new outline to the physiognomy of the universe!’

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