Three hundred years after his birth, Lancelot “Capability” Brown has so comprehensively infiltrated our national consciousness that our notion of what is beautiful in the English landscape is almost entirely of his making. At the end of the 17th century, the dominant taste was for rigidly formal gardens inspired by Versailles: an imperious style that proclaimed man’s confident dominance over nature. Brown established in its place a definitively English style that deliberately blurred the boundaries between art and nature. This was understood as both an aesthetic and political rebuff to French tyranny and autocracy.
Brown did not invent the landscape garden: it was William Kent (1685-1748) before him who famously “leapt the fence and saw that all nature was a garden”. But Brown’s landscapes confidently expressed an emergent new relationship with nature: it was no longer a predatory force to be excluded, but, increasingly, a source of joy and inspiration. Kent’s painterly gardens (especially Stowe) remained self-conscious artefacts, packed with temples, arches and statuary that alluded to a body of classical knowledge shared by all educated men of the time. But perhaps because Brown was of humble birth (he was the son of Northumbrian farmers) and had never received a classical education or made the Grand Tour, his landscapes spoke to the emotions rather than the intellect.
They were also eminently practical: where modern visitors may be transported by beauties of line, balance and scale, the landowner would note that the acres of greensward could be grazed by sheep or cut for hay, that the serpentine lake was stocked with fish as well as fun for boating, and that trees around the perimeter offered both a source of timber and shelter for game: utility and aesthetic pleasure were one.
The fate of Lancelot Brown was no different from that of celebrities today – he was extravagantly lauded (and rewarded) for a period, and then roundly trashed. His big break was to get a job at Stowe, where as head gardener to Lord Cobham, he turned Kent’s sometimes fanciful ideas into a beautiful and workable landscape. His first major commission, in 1751, was at Croome Court in Worcestershire, where he remodelled the house, demolished and resited the church, and drained the marshy grounds, channelling the water to create a lake that masqueraded as the source of the River Severn. Brown worked on Croome, his “first and favourite child”, for the rest of his life.
He worked relentlessly for the next 30 years: some 270 landscapes have been attributed to him, including some of the most glorious in the land: Bowood and Burghley, Chatsworth and Harewood, the serene sweep of Petworth and the magisterial approach to Blenheim, the Golden Valley at Ashridge and the sinuous lakes at Sheffield Park.
But by the 1770s Brown had become a victim of his own success: the desire for a Brownian landscape didn’t so much trickle as cascade down the social scale, as landowners large and small strove to establish themselves as Persons of Taste. Typical was Thomas Harley, a wealthy banker who in 1775 bought Berrington Hall in Herefordshire and engaged Brown to design the park. It is his last work, and it gets mixed reviews: some think it formulaic, but there’s no denying the grandeur of the 14-acre lake, or the magnificent views from the house, designed by Brown’s son-in-law, architect Henry Holland.
Brown’s work fell from favour after his death, dismissed as dull and insipid while the new fashion for the picturesque embraced rocky crags, blasted trees and rushing torrents. He was largely ignored by the plant-hungry Victorians, and really only rehabilitated in the 1950s. At the V&A’s The Garden exhibition of 1979, Brown was acknowledged only by a plaque dismissing his work as “an aberration lasting only half a century, depriving the English of the sort of complicated flowery gardens that they love”. In reality he did no such thing. In the exalted circles in which Brown moved, few formal gardens probably remained intact by the 1750s or 1760s: walls had already been removed and geometry softened under the influence of previous architects. And, far from banishing flowers, Brown was an eager adopter of the new American flowering plants, then just arriving in Britain.
Brown has also been reviled on the grounds of social justice. These perfected landscapes had no place for the dwellings of the poor, and at Bowood, Audley End, Nuneham and many others, villages were drowned or demolished. Yet such destruction was far from unusual – many villages had been cleared in the course of enclosure, and most of those evicted from parks had disappeared before Brown’s career began.
His tercentenary has prompted a spate of restorations. These projects have revealed Brown’s excellence as an engineer, as well as his very modern approach to sustainable water-management and stewardship of the land. His landscapes have proved adaptable to modern pressures; only the inexorable spread of multiple tree diseases currently threatens their integrity. The serenity they afford seems all the more precious in these troubled times. National Trust garden historian Richard Wheeler sums up their enduring appeal: “Brown gives us nature in a form more beautiful than she could ever be by herself.”
Brown landscapes to visit
Ashridge Estate, Hertfordshire The Golden Valley, a mile-long dry “bottom” in the chalk downloads of the Chilterns, is considered one of Brown’s finest works: it’s at its best in autumn.
Berrington Hall, Herefordshire Brown’s final landscape has a new waymarked walk to guide you to the best views; in August, hire a boat to tour the 14-acre lake.
Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire It doesn’t get more magisterial than this 2,000-acre estate with serpentine lake and vistas galore. There’s a Brown-themed walking trail, or bring your wheels for a family cycling day on August 14.
Bowood, Wiltshire A hundred acres of parkland with a mile-long sinuous lake with a Doric temple alongside. An exhibition, Terrestrial Delights: “Capability” Brown And The Bowood Landscape, runs until 31 October.
Chatsworth House, Derbyshire An iconic 1,000-acre park on the banks of the river Derwent. Book a Brown-themed guided tour on 20 August or 17 September.
Croome Court, Worcestershire Brown’s first major commission. Work continues to restore the estate to its full glory, including planting 500 trees this year.
Harewood House, Yorkshire Brown installed a 32-acre serpentine lake, cascade and carriage drives at this, one of England’s grandest homes. At weekends and bank holidays, get on board The Capability, the estate’s boat, for tours of the lake.
Petworth, West Sussex A South Downs mansion with a 700-acre deer park. Bring a picnic for the Capabili-tea Party on 21 August.
