The English Landscape Garden

After our first trip to England viewing gardens, I came back amazed, and having learned of something totally new for me - the English Landscape Garden.  This is a garden generally without flowers, but with interesting landscape features such as artificial lakes, bridges, temples and so on.  The big example we saw was the 'garden' at Stourhead.

Created by Henry Hoare, a rich English banker, Stourhead is fascinating once you realize what you're seeing.  Trips to Italy were a big inspiration for this garden; many of the garden features are copied or inspired by Roman temples.  But the big feature is this artificial lake and a bridge that has no purpose but to look visually attractive.

The feature I liked best was the Temple of Apollo.

 

It was the careful placement on a distant hillside that appealed to me the most.  It's all about creating a landscape that's visually attractive and interesting.

The big temple was the Pantheon, modelled after the one in Rome.  Unfortunately it was being restored when we were there and we couldn't get close.  But let me share a few of the unique garden features that other landscape gardens in England have.

This reflecting pool, temple and obelisk are at Chiswick House, right in London.  Like most of these unique 'gardens', this was created in the mid-1700s.

Another weird and wonderful feature is the Temple of British Worthies at Stowe.  There is only one woman, Queen Elizabeth I. There's a bit of political bias here, as they were all selected for their Whig (liberal) political leanings.  There are many other landscape features at Stowe, now a private school, including two unique bridges and several temples.

One of the very first gardens we visited was Scotney Castle, in southeast England.  It's one huge garden feature all by itself, though not everyone has a real castle in their garden.  I like it because you could still get inside and see the building.

And finally a truly unique garden building is the rebuilt Witch's House from Hesterecombe.  

And finally the artificial lake and picturesque bridge at Blenheim Palace.  The English Landscape Garden was truly something unusual among gardens for me!