Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, 1716-1783 by Jane Brown

Author:Jane Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409019428
Publisher: Random House

Why Lancelot bought Fenstanton is a much more difficult question to answer. He certainly made the decision when he was under great stresses and arguably not at the best time. Did he simply want to invest in land? Jonathan Spyers did not complete his survey for ten years, so for the time being it was estimated at about 1,000 acres. More likely Lancelot wished to make provision for his family in the event of his death, as the news of his brother John’s sudden death in March 1766 had shaken him. He had his Will drafted (eventually dated 1769), which in the midst of all this heady activity makes poignant reading, but allows an insight into his thoughts.

His foreman Benjamin Read was to be employed ‘to go from Place to Place’ to clear up all the contracted work, ‘and I hope such employment will prove of use to him’. Samuel Lapidge, who ‘knows my accounts,’ was to be an executor, along with ‘my dear wife’, friend John Drummond (old Andrew’s son), John Edison of Cooper’s Hall, London (gentleman and lawyer) and Henry Holland (senior). The Fenstanton estate was to provide annuities for Biddy, Lance, Jack (‘whom God preserve in his hazardous employment’ in the navy) and his eldest daughter Bridget, who was of age and was to have the silver candlestick, as he had always promised. The ‘liberal education’ of Thomas was in his mother’s care, as was their youngest daughter Peggy (their daughter Anne had died).

The remainder of the Fenstanton estate was put in trust for Lance, and Biddy’s dowry land in Lincolnshire was similarly left to Jack. There were legacies to his surviving sister Mary Hudson, to his nephew Richard Brown, to Biddy’s brother and married sister and their niece Phyllis ‘Philly’ Cooke, who lived with them. The housemen William and George Davis were not forgotten, nor were the livery men and boys, nor the housemaids, for all were to have a year’s wages.

It was wise and thoughtful planning, but Lancelot was not finished yet.

Indeed, he was dancing, or nearly so; as the crises had cleared in the September of 1767, he had explored Fenstanton and Hilton and his patch of Huntingdonshire. He intended no hasty decisions and the well-tenanted holdings and houses were left in peace, hardly knowing that their landlord had changed. But for Lancelot, a new northwards pattern was introduced into his travelling life; hardly 10 miles from Fenstanton, he made his first visit to Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, now Jemima, Marchioness Grey’s home with her husband, Lord Hardwicke. ‘Break off. Break off,55 we tread Enchanted Ground,’ she wrote, ‘Mr Brown has been leading me such a Fairy Circle & his Magic Wand has raised such landscapes to the Eye – not visionary for they were all there but his Touch has brought them out with the same Effect as a Painter’s Pencil upon Canvass.’ Though she knew every inch of her own Wrest, the farther reaches of Wimpole’s vast park were unfamiliar, and ‘after having hobbled over rough ground’ for two hours she returned ‘half Tired & half Foot sore’.

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