Gerard Dockery says:
Tresco Abbey Gardens are located on the island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, United Kingdom. The 17-acre (7 ha) gardens were established by the nineteenth-century proprietor of the islands, Augustus Smith, originally as a private garden within the grounds of the home he designed and built. The gardens are designated at Grade I in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Augustus Smith chose Tresco as the site of his home because the site was more or less central in relation to the rest of the islands. It is also close to the original abbey ruins, is near a fresh water pool and overlooks the sand dunes and beach at Carn Near. The area at the time was barren land and the original building, designed by Smith and started in 1835, was small in comparison to the current building. He made additions to the house in 1843 and 1861. The Grade II listed house consists of roughly coursed granite with ashlar dressings and a slate roof. Some of the timbers from the 1861 wreck of the Award were used for the panelling and roof of the new dining room, as well as panelling of the rooms Annet, Rosevean and Rosevear. His successor, Thomas Smith-Dorrien-Smith, added the tower in 1891.
When Augustus Smith chose the area for his house and garden one of his first acts was to build a granite wall for shelter and to scatter gorse (Ulex europaeus) seeds. The seeds were brought from the mainland which suggests that the main gorse plant on the islands was western gorse (Ulex gallii) which, being a low growing plant, would not provide as much shelter. Within the gardens are the remains of a Benedictine abbey founded in 964 AD, although the majority of what remains today comes from the Priory of St Nicholas founded by monks from Tavistock Abbey in 1114. There were hardly any trees on the island and the gorse did not provide enough protection so he planted shelterbelts. The first were mainly deciduous trees such as, elm (Ulmus sp), sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), oak (Quercus sp) and poplar (Populus sp), and later he planted Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) and Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) which are fast growing and suited to coastal conditions.
A large expansion to the collection was undertaken by Arthur Dorrien-Smith in the early years of the 20th century. He made many trips to South Africa looking for suitable trees and plants. He went on the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition, which had as its primary object magnetic observation in the Auckland and Campbell Islands. Following the expedition he travelled widely in New Zealand, as well as making a shorter visit to Australia.[9] In 1909 he again visited Australia, New Zealand and the Chatham Islands, returning on SS Athenic. By this time he had amassed a total collection of plants and seeds of about 2280 specimens.
Because of the mild winter climate, the long hours of summer sunshine, and the high walls and hedges around the garden protecting it from the Atlantic winds, the garden is now home to exotic plants from all over the world: the Mediterranean, South America, South Africa and Australasia.
Wikipedia
Gerard Dockery says:
St. Paul's Walden Bury is an English country house and surrounding gardens in the village of St Paul's Walden in Hertfordshire. The house is a Grade II* listed, and the gardens Grade I.
The garden wilderness, or highly formalized woodland, is a very rare survival, and the "most perfect surviving" English example. It was laid out in the 1730s with straight walks in the old formal style, when these were already becoming rather unfashionable.
The house, of red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs, was built around the 1730s for Edward Gilbert (1680–1762). His daughter Mary married George Bowes of Gibside, Durham, and the estate has been in the possession of the Bowes or Bowes-Lyon family since 1720. James Paine made alterations to the house in the 1770s, which was also extended to the rear in the late nineteenth century.
The St Paul's Walden Bury gardens' design is largely contemporary with the house, with additional 19th and 20th-century woodland garden areas. Geoffrey Jellicoe (1900–1996), the landscape designer, restored and "improved" the 18th-century work. There are three straight grassed allées radiating in patte d'oie ("goose foot") formation from the garden front of the house. The garden is notable for one of the best surviving formal wildernesses. Each allée is flanked by clipped beech hedges. In the 1950s a circular temple designed by James Wyatt was rescued and brought here from Copped Hall, Essex, when that house burned down. There are a number of other garden buildings and statues, some 18th-century, and an 18th-century walled kitchen garden, nearly square and divided in two parts by a further wall.
Gerard Dockery says:
The Queen's Temple is a large Neo-classical building on two floors. It has a Corinthian portico and steps on the south front and a curved Ionic portico on the north front.
Built in the mid 1740's by Gibbs in a much simpler form and known as the Ladies Temple. It was enlarged and embellished in the 1770's and dedicated to Queen Caroline, wife of George III. A fragment of Roman mosaic from Foscott Roman Villa was set in the floor in 1839. It is now used by the Music Department of the school. Pavilion of c1740 by Gibbs, remodelled c1770. Balustraded parapet, ashlar stone, rusticated to basement 3-bay corinthian portico on south approached by stone steps with balustrades. Glazed central opening, niches with urns each side. North front also has slightly projecting pedimented centre with curved Ionic portico, flanking niches. Interior: decorations by Valdre. Floor has Roman tesselated pavement moved from Foscott 1839-40.
Originally built as the feminine counterpart to the Temple of Friendship at the opposite end of the Hawkwell Field circuit walk and called the ‘Lady’s Building’, the Queen’s Temple was probably designed by Gibbs around 1742 and completed about six years later. Its original form is shown in the early guidebooks with a great room centred on a Palladian window over a rusticated basement with an open arcade in front, it must have resembled a small town hall. Inside the ‘prospect room’, Sleter painted murals describing feminine recreations, ‘Ladies employing themselves in Needle and Shell-work’ and ‘diverting themselves with Painting and Musick’ .
Of Gibbs’s building, probably only the basement survived the radical remodelling in 1772–4, when the great composite portico (based on that of the Temple of Diana at Nîmes) and steps were added to the south front and the first floor remodelled as a single space, probably to the designs of Earl Temple’s cousin Thomas Pitt. Edward Batchelor’s bill of August 1778 for ‘Working and Laying the Circler Portico Ladys Temple’ must refer to the addition of the charming bow on the north front, which may also have been designed by Thomas Pitt.
Yet further alterations were made in 1790 to commemorate the recovery of George III from madness after devoted nursing by Queen Charlotte, to whom the temple was rededicated. (The 1st Marquess’s political position depended on the King’s good health.) The changes were described in the 1797 edition of Seeley’s guide:
The room is ornamented by Scaiola [scagliola] columns and pilasters, supporting a trunk-ceiling, taken from the design of the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome: At the West end is a Medallion of Britannia dejected, and with her spear reversed, and on the tablet the following inscription:
Desideriis icta fidelibus Quaerit Patria Caesarem. [Horace, Odes, iv, 5, 15–16] For Caesar’s life, with anxious hopes and fears, Britannia lifts to Heav’n a nation’s tears.
On the East-end is a Medallion of Britannia with a palm, and sacrificing to Esculapius, on the recovery of the King from his illness; and on the tablet the following inscription: “ O Sol pulcher! O laudande, Canam recepto Caesare felix. [Horace, Odes, iv, 2, 46–8] Oh happy day! With rapture Britons sing The day when Hea’n restore their fav’rite King!”
In the centre of this apartment is a magnificent setting figure of Britannia supporting a medallion of the Queen. — the figure is as large as life, and is placed upon a fluted pedestal, on which is the following inscription:
Charlottae Sophiae Augustae, Pietate erga Regem, erga Rempublicam Virtute et constantia, In difficillimis temporibus spectatissimae, D.D.D. Georgius M. de Buckingham. MDCCLXXXIX To the queen, Most respectable in the most difficult moments, For her attachment and zeal for the public service, George, M[arquess] of buckingham dedicates this monument. 1789.
On the walls of the centre compartment of this building are four medallions, representing 1. Trophies of Religion, Justice and Mercy. 2. Trophies of Agriculture and Manufacture. 3. Trophies of Navigation and Commerce. 4. Trophies of War.
Almost all of the sculptural decoration described by Seeley was executed in 1790 by Charles Peart, who had modelled the spectacular plaster triumphal procession in the frieze of the Marble Saloon in the house two years previously. The exception was the statue of Britannia, which is the only recorded work at Stowe by Joseph Ceracchi. In 1842 the 2nd Duke of Buckingham inserted in the centre of the floor a Roman mosaic pavement removed from the villa on his estate at nearby Foscott, which had been excavated in 1837–42 (Bucks County Museum has two mounted sections of pavement from Foscote which were donated by a Mr G.H. Harrison in 1918
The Queen’s Temple became the home of Stowe School’s Music Department. The columns of the portico weathered badly, and so in 1933–4 the School carried out repairs under the direction of Fielding Dodd and funded by an appeal, but the need for a further campaign is now obvious.
In the parish itself there was no record or any trace of the Roman occupation; but at Foscott, somewhat north of the Buckingham and Stony Stratford road, there was an extensive Roman villa, with its baths supplied by spring water , laid on through large leaden pipes, and a large walled tank in front of the villa, with an oak-pile foot bridge across it about four and a half feet wide, and where, also, in 1837-8, was found a good specimen of a tesselated pavement, unfortunately lost by injudicious attempts at removal at a bad season of the year. The removal was left to the workmen, and nothing a foot square of it was brought home. The only record of it was a drawing which the speaker made of it when a boy. A smaller tesselated pavement was found in 1839-40, which was damaged only in one portion, and he was fortunate to remove this and place it in the centre of the Queen's Temple. In the gardens there were also found a specimen of the tile flues with which the rooms were heated, fragments of pottery, stone pillars, and one roofing tile of the old villa; all these objects were preserved in the Stowe museum.
At the meeting of the Oxford Ashmolean Society, held on Monday, Feb. 13, the Marquis of Chandos exhibited a Plan of the Excavations of a Roman Villa at Foxcote, near Buckingham, together with several coins and some fragments of fossil coal found at the same place. The excavations are situated about a mile and a half from Buckingham, on the north of the road leading to Stony Stratford, at the foot of the hill, and about 100 yards from the high road. Until the year 1837 the farmers in the neighbourhood had been in the habit of digging up the old foundations whenever they were in want of stone, at which period the layer (sic) of the two baths was discovered. The last excavation took place in 1842-43. The tank marked A in the plan contains a spring which ran through wooden trunks of trees to a larger tank. When first discovered the walls were covered with a red stucco, which, however, fell off during the second year of its exposure to the air. The greatest height of any of the remaining walls did not exceed three feet above the floor, and were generally not more than one foot. A leaden pipe communicates from the larger bath to a small circular place, which seemed to have contained some vessel for heating water. In another room was found a small stone column, and near it a large salver, nearly 16 inches in diameter. It appears to be composed of tin, with a slight proportion of silver, and in the same room was found a small vessel, apparently of the same metal, but much more corroded. A large square tesselated pavement was found in the adjacent room, and other fragments in a less perfect condition. The general thickness of the walls was 2 ft. 3 in. for the main walls, and 1 ft. 8 in. for the remainder. The courses were not regular in thickness, varying from three to ten inches. The coins exhibited consist of copper coins of Constantine, Commodus etc.
The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos still continues the excavations of the Roman villa at Fescote, Bucks. on the farm of Mr. Roper. Many interesting discoveries have been made, amongst which is a wooden spout or tube, which, when uncovered at the top, threw up water the height of several feet. Oak piles have also been taken out, the wood of which, is perfectly sound.
National Trust Heritage Records
Gerard Dockery says:
The Chinese House is known to date from 1738, making it the first known building in England built in the Chinese style. It is made of wood and painted on canvas inside and out by Francesco Sleter. Originally, it was built on stilts in a pond near the Elysian Fields. In 1751, it was moved from Stowe and reconstructed first at Wotton House, the nearby seat of the Grenville family. In 1951, it was then moved to Harristown, Kildare.[78] Its construction set a new fashion in landscape gardening for Chinese-inspired structures.
It was purchased by the National Trust in 1996 and returned to its original current position at Stowe. The Chinoiserie Garden Pavilion at Hamilton Gardens in New Zealand is based on the Chinese House at Stowe.
Gerard Dockery says:
Located in a grove of trees at the eastern end of the Grecian Valley, at the north-east corner of the gardens, the structure is a small belvedere designed by James Gibbs in 1729. It was moved to its present position in the 1760s; it originally stood where Queen Caroline's statue stands. It is square in plan with chamfered corners that, built of stone, each side is an open arch, herma protrude from each chamfered corner. It is surmounted by an octagonal lead dome.
Gerard Dockery says:
Built of stone erected in 1768 for the visit of Princess Amelia, probably to the design of Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, is a simple arch flanked by fluted Doric pilasters, with an elaborate entablature with triglyphs and carved metopes supporting a tall attic. This leads to the Elysian fields.
Gerard Dockery says:
These pavilions have moved location during their history. They were designed by Vanbrugh in 1719, they are on the edge of the ha-ha flanking the central vista through the park to the Corinthian Arch. They were moved further apart in 1764 and their details made neo-classical by the architect Borra. Raised on a low podium they are reached by a flight of eight steps, they are pedimented of four fluted Doric columns in width by two in depth, with a solid back wall and with coffered plaster ceiling. Behind the eastern pavilion is the Bell Gate. This was used by the public when visiting the gardens in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Gerard Dockery says:
Stowe Castle is an 18th-century farmhouse wittily disguised as a medieval-style castle built to act as an eyecatcher from the Temple of Friendship in the gardens of Stowe House in Buckinghamshire. The striking building features a high stone curtain wall topped with 60ft of castellations that hide the farmhouse and its associated farm buildings. It has been attributed to James Gibbs and was built in 1740 along with many of the other temples and statues that are scattered around the Stowe grounds.
Country Life
Gerard Dockery says:
towe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens, are extensive, Grade I listed gardens and parkland in Buckinghamshire, England. Largely created in the 18th century, the gardens at Stowe are arguably the most significant example of the English landscape garden. Designed by Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown, the gardens changed from a baroque park to a natural landscape garden, commissioned by the estate's owners, in particular by Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, his nephew Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, and his nephew George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham.
The gardens are notable for the scale, design, size and the number of monuments set across the landscape, as well as for the fact they have been a tourist attraction for over 300 years. Many of the monuments in the property have their own additional Grade I listing along with the park. These include: the Corinthian Arch, the Temple of Venus, the Palladian Bridge, the Gothic Temple, the Temple of Ancient Virtue, the Temple of British Worthies, the Temple of Concord and Victory, the Queen's Temple, Doric Arch, the Oxford Bridge, amongst others.
The gardens passed into the ownership of the National Trust in 1989, whilst Stowe House, the home of Stowe School, is under the care of the Stowe House Preservation Trust. The parkland surrounding the gardens is open 365 days a year.
The Stowe gardens and estate are located close to the village of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, England.[1] John Temple, a wealthy wool farmer, purchased the manor and estate in 1589. Subsequent generations of Temples inherited the estate, but it was with the succession of Sir Richard Temple that the gardens began to be developed, after the completion of a new house in 1683.
Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, inherited the estate in 1697, and in 1713 was given the title Baron Cobham. During this period, both the house and the garden were redesigned and expanded, with leading architects, designers and gardeners employed to enhance the property The installation of a variety of temples and classical features was illustrated the Temple family's wealth and status. The temples are also considered as a humorous reference to the family motto: TEMPLA QUAM DILECTA ('How beautiful are the Temples').
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