The English Landscape Garden by Tim Richardson

Author:Tim Richardson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Published: 2024-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The open rotunda of the Temple of Venus, presiding over the wooded lower section of the garden, conceived by Sir Francis Dashwood as a paean to womankind.

Venus does not appear in the painted decoration in the porticos and colonnade of the house, perhaps because her realm was the lower garden. But another female goddess does. Diana, twin of Apollo, goddess of the hunt, appears in the south colonnade pouring water from an amphora. She was invoked again in a miniature, formerly frescoed temple dedicated to her near the West Portico. The building seems a little lost today but formerly played a more important role: after the western entrance drive was instituted, it was one of the first features seen by visitors, the goddess like a guard in a sentry box – a typically ironic statement in the context of the general thrust of the garden’s symbolism, since Diana also symbolized chastity.

Beyond the Temple of Apollo and positioned next to the ha-ha that forms the southern boundary of the garden where it meets the park is the Round Temple, a dovecote redesigned by Revett with the ingenious addition of a semicircular Doric colonnade and (originally) a pyramidal roof, giving it the appearance of an attractive circular building on the park-facing side. The Round Temple is visually linked with the Temple of the Winds, also positioned on the edge of the ha-ha, but to the south-east of the house. It was the work of John Donowell, the surveyor-architect who worked closely with Dashwood until around 1764 – he was responsible for the Temple of Venus and various other features. Like the Round Temple, this began life as a service building – in this case an ice house – but was remodelled in 1755–9 so as to resemble Revett’s illustration of the ancient Tower of the Winds (Horologium) at Athens. Finished some three years before the publication of the Antiquities of Athens, it can therefore be accounted one of the earliest attempts in England to reproduce an ancient Greek monument. The building’s integrity is shown to best effect from the parkland side, while from the northern (garden) side it presents itself as a curious portmanteau, thanks to the addition of a grand stone-carved doorway (a leftover from the 1st Baronet’s house) and an elaborate flintwork screen that raises it up on this side.

A design drawing preserved in the house is labelled ‘winter temple’, perhaps a witty reference to its original identity as an ice house. The name could also be a reference to the Winter Palace, which Dashwood encountered during his formative period in Russia as a twenty-five-year-old, visiting the court of Peter the Great in St Petersburg in June 1733.

The Russian link is perhaps even more pertinent as a clue to Dashwood’s inspiration for the extraordinary south front of his house. In St Petersburg, the most exciting recent architectural project at the time of Dashwood’s visit was the Menshikov Palace (1710–27), designed by Giovanni Maria Fontana for the emperor’s most loyal lieutenant, who was exiled to Siberia soon after.

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