The English Landscape tradition has been described as Britain’s greatest contribution to the arts. The early eighteenth century was pivotal in the evolution of the English garden and many of our current perceptions of landscape stem from eighteenth-century theory and practice.
Considered one of Britain’s greatest influences on European art and architecture, the English Landscape Movement has influenced gardens across the globe from Blenheim Palace to Central Park in New York. Developed by William Kent, along with his mentor and friend Lord Burlington, the English Landscape Movement broke down the rigid formality of the early 18th century garden to create something quite new: a natural landscape, developed to complement the neo-Palladian villa at its centre.
In the early 18th century, ideas about garden design were changing fast. Using 18th century plans and archives we will explore the garden at Marble Hill, which included grottos, groves, wildernesses and a ninepin bowling alley! Henrietta Howard’s friendships with Alexander Pope, Lord Bathurst, Lord Peterborough and Lord Ilay, meant that her garden at Marble Hill was influenced by some of the most fashionable garden enthusiasts of the time.
Strawberry Hill is “an open grove through which you see a field which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kinds of trees and flowering shrubs and flowers.”