North Stoneham Park in Danger - Please Help

Whether you like 'Capability' Brown or not, the fact you know his name and are reading this signifies you have an interest in garden history.

Now, a campaign requires your support to help preserve an historic landscape from 'development'.  I would rather use the word 'vandalism'.

North Stoneham Park in Hampshire is, yes, a Capability Brown landscape - a fine one, and ond one that  Eastleigh Borough Council wishes to concrete over in the name of 1,300 commuter homes. 

Friends of North Stoneham Park are fighting the proposals and need your support.  Get in touch by email and offer you help / support / comments, write to your MP and vociferously complain against such destruction of our national heritage, and please sign the petition and encourage others to do so too.  

Thank you.

Lancelot Brown is Blogging!

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (1716-1783)

Now then.  Lancelot 'Capability' Brown is one of the most contentious designers  in British garden history, and its often a case of love him or hate him.  He is often accused of destroying so many of the English Renaissance gardens of the 17th century.  Considering that the Civil War had taken a hefty toll of gardens and that Brown was the third in a line of great landscapists and oftentimes worked on landscapes they had, I am not sure how far this accusation sticks.  

And he is occasionally accused of designs that resulted in the displacement of villages and villagers.  This is certainly true, but the Enclosure Acts were far more pernicious than the mild-mannered Brown.

Brown's landscape at Montacute: more natural than nature!

I am sure you can see by now that I fall into the former category and think that Brown's work was genius.  To be able to envisage how a mature landscape should look at its peak - 200 years into the future - takes vision; and there is also something humbling about Brown and his work for he must have know that he would never live to see one of his designs reach maturity.

Brown's landscape at Blenheim - perhaps his finest.

And for my money he was also the first Modernist.  For if we apply the maxim 'form follows function' then that is exactly what his designs achieved.  They were the 'natural' English landscape perfected, and thus performed their artistic function, whilst simultaneously demonstrating that the owner was at the cutting edge of fashion.  Yet they were also productive and yielded an income and also met the requirements of countryside recreations.

Chatsworth set within Brown's landscape 

So, may I introduce you to the new blog Lancelot Capability Brown which is dedicated to proselyting about the man, his work and celebrating the forthcoming tercentenary of his birth.

You can also follow Lancelot on Twitter: @Brown2016

The Alliance for Historic Landscape Preservation

 

Here is a useful landscape preservation advocacy group for all you American garden historians and conservationists.  

According to its website The Alliance for Historic Landscape Preservation:

'is an interdisciplinary professional organization which provides a forum for communication and exchange of information among its members. It is dedicated to the preservation and conservation of historic landscapes in all their variety, from formal gardens and public parks to rural and natural expanses.' 

Check out the website and join!

Minoan Frescoes -do they show gardens?

Reconstruction of the fresco from the villa at Agia Triadha, by M.A.S. Cameron. LM IA, c 1600-1500 BC

Back in December I posted the question, did the Minoans make gardens? It is a question that will probably never receive an absolute answer.  But on the subject of interpreting Minoan landscape frescoes and the possibility that they depict sacro-religious gardens, I've just discovered a post on the blog Art History Attacks.  More fuel for the fire!