March 2022

62
Wanstead Village Directory
A POTTED HISTORY
Ruth Martin of the Aldersbrook Horticultural Society has compiled a
potted history of the garden. In the second of a series of articles, she
guides us from Renaissance to Regency landscapes
The Renaissance was a ‘rebirth’ of
the culture and art of the ancient
civilisations of Greece and Rome;
gardening during this period (15th and 16th
centuries) saw a rediscovery of the classical
approach to gardening, with designs
uniting house and garden.
The Villa d’Este outside Rome is one of
the gardens created in this period with its
famous water gardens with fountains, spouts,
waterjets, waterfalls and basins created by
hydraulic engineers. In England, the garden of
Hampton Court was developed by Henry VIII
to rival the French Renaissance garden of
Fontainebleu; he spent the equivalent of
£18m improving the house and developing
the garden. Features of Hampton Court and
other Tudor gardens included a privy garden,
or private garden, next to the house, topiary
shapes made of hawthorn and rosemary and
the knot garden made up of rectangular beds
planted with evergreen, some complicated,
some very simple. This was the time of the
rise of the town garden; examples in London
include the development of the gardens of
the Inns of Court and gardens of mansions,
such as Somerset House and palaces,
St James, Whitehall and Lambeth.
The 16th and 17th centuries in England were
relatively prosperous, with houses built
outside town walls. Often, it was the wives
who were responsible for the gardens; rearing
livestock and growing vegetables and fruit. In
the 17th century, the first botanical gardens
were created: Oxford in 621 and Chelsea (the
Physic Garden) in 1673. These were established
by apothecaries to grow plants for medicines.
Nearer home, in 1714, Richard Child
commissioned the leading garden designers
of the time, George London and Henry Wise,
Villa d’Este in Tivoli,
near Rome
to design the gardens at Wanstead House.
They paid careful attention to planting plans
and bought plants from the famous nursery
at Brompton Park in Fulham, which they part
owned. The formal gardens included parterres
and mazes, with a pair of mounts arranged
symmetrically on either side of a grass ride.
After Wanstead House was rebuilt as the first
Palladian mansion in the country, a vast new
lake system was introduced. It is suggested
that William Kent, another leading garden
designer, was also involved at Wanstead.
Kent was one of the originators of the English
landscape movement, a move from formal
to more natural designs, but including lakes,
classical buildings and bridges, influenced
by landowners returning from the Grand
Tour. Kent’s masterpiece was the garden at
Rousham in Oxfordshire. A generation later,
Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown became a leading
designer of the English landscape movement;
his work depended on a simple formula of
trees, water and terrain. Audley End and
Chatsworth are two examples of his work.
Ruth will be giving a presentation on the
history of the garden at Aldersbrook Bowls
Club on 8 March from 7.30pm (visitors: £5).
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