Gardening in Great Britain

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru

Introduction

The topic of my course work is «Gardening in Great Britain».

A Garden is one of the most ancient of man's creations. Each garden is unique, reflecting the landscape and climate of its environment, and also the heritage, the history, architectural styles and influences of the people who plant it and care for it.

Horticulture began in the Levant 10,000 years ago and reached the British Isles in the year 4000 BC, probably by cultural diffusion. The design of gardens for temples and palaces probably began in Mesopotamia 5,500 years ago and the Romans made palace gardens on the British Isles after 43 BC. Yet these islands became home to the most enthusiastic gardeners and London became the capital city of garden design.

So, from my point of view, the theme of my course work is quite topical. It is generally considered that the British are famous for tea and bad weather. But in my work I will try to highlight a different side of The Foggy Albion.

Today, parks and gardens of big country houses, many of which are open to the public, are very popular. But ordinary British people also like their own gardens. Gardening is very popular in the media. The BBC started the first radio program for gardeners in 1936. Gardening programs in the media are still very popular now.

Nearly half of British people consider gardening as one of their hobbies. You can see this in British villages, where cottage gardens are small but full of flowers. Another example of the British love for gardens is the National Gardens Scheme. More than 3,300 ordinary people open their gardens to the public, who pay about three pounds for the visit. Yet another example is the popularity of the Chelsea Flower Show, the most famous flower show in the world, started by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1913.

The main purpose of the present work is to track the development of British gardens and to describe the best of them.

The main tasks are:

· To study historical background of British gardens

· To show common features of British gardens

· To consider the most famous British gardens

What concerns the structure of my work, it consists of the introduction, two theoretical parts, the conclusion, the list of references and four appendixes with pictures of British gardens.

1. The history of origin of the English park

1.1 The English landscape garden in the 18th-19th centuries

The English landscape garden, also called English Landscape Park or simply the English garden, is a style of Landscape garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical Garden а la franзaise of the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. They were often inspired by paintings of landscapes by Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin, and some were influenced by the classic Chinese gardens of the East, which had recently been described by European travelers. The English garden usually included a lake, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. The work of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was particularly influential. By the end of the 18th century the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden, and as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia, in Pavlovsk, the gardens of the future Emperor Paul. It also had a major influence on the form of the public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century.

The predecessors of the landscape garden in England were the great parks created by Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) and Nicholas Hawksmoor at Castle Howard (1699-1712), Blenheim Palace (1705-1722), and the Claremont Landscape Garden at Claremont House (1715-1727). These parks featured vast lawns, woods, and pieces of architecture, such as the classical mausoleum designed by Hawksmoor at Castle Howard. At the center of the composition was the house, behind which were formal and symmetrical gardens in the style of the Garden а la franзaise, with ornate carpets of floral designs and walls of hedges, decorated with statues and fountains. These gardens, modeled after the gardens of Versailles, were designed to impress visitors with their size and grandeur.

The new style that became known as the English garden was invented by landscape designers William Kent and Charles Bridgeman, working for wealthy patrons, including Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and banker Henry Hoare; men who had large country estates, were members of the anti-royalist Whig Party, had classical educations, were patrons of the arts, and had taken the Grand tour to Italy, where they had seen the Roman ruins and Italian landscapes they reproduced in their gardens.

William Kent (1685-1738) was an architect, painter and furniture designer who introduced Palladian style architecture to England. Kent's inspiration came from Palladio's buildings in the Veneto and the landscapes and ruins around Rome - he lived in Italy from 1709 to 1719, and brought back many drawings of antique architecture and landscapes. His gardens were designed to complement the Palladian architecture of the houses he built.

Charles Bridgeman (1690-1738) was the son of a gardener and an experienced horticulturist, who became the Royal Gardener for Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark, responsible for tending and redesigning the royal gardens at Windsor, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, St. James's Park and Hyde Park. He collaborated with Kent on several major gardens, providing the botanical expertise which allowed Kent to realize his architectural visions.

Kent created one of the first true English landscape gardens at Cheswick House for Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington. The first gardens that he laid out between 1724 and 1733 had many formal elements of a Garden а la franзaise, including alleys forming a trident and canals, but they had something new - picturesque recreation of an Ionic temple set in a theater of trees. Between 1733 and 1736, he redesigned the garden again, adding lawns sloping down to the edge of the river, and a small cascade. For the first time the form of a garden was inspired not by architecture, but by an idealized version of nature.

Rousham House in Oxfordshire is considered by some as the most accomplished and significant of William Kent's work. The patron was General Dormer, who commissioned Bridgeman to begin the garden in 1727, then brought in Kent to recreate it in 1737. Bridgeman had built a series of gardens, including a grotto of Venus, on the slope along the river Cherwell, connected by straight alleys. Kent turned the alleys into winding paths, built a gently turning stream, used the natural landscape features and slopes, and created a series of views and tableaus decorated with allegorical statues of Apollo, a wounded gladiator, a lion attacking a horse, and other subjects. He placed "eye-catchers," pieces of classical architecture, to decorate the landscape, a trench used to hide fences so the garden seemed to go into the far distance. Finally, he added cascades modeled on those of the garden of Aldobrandini and Pratolino in Italy, to add movement and drama.

But the most influential figure in the later development of the English landscape garden was Lancelot "Capability" Brown (1716-1783) who began his career in 1740 as a gardener at Stowe under Charles Bridgeman, then succeeded William Kent in 1748.

Brown's contribution was to simplify the garden by eliminating geometric structures, alleys, and parterres near the house and replacing them with rolling lawns and extensive views out to isolated groups of trees, making the landscape seem even larger. "He sought to create an ideal landscape out of the English countryside." He created artificial lakes and used dams and canals to transform streams or springs into the illusion that a river flowed through the garden.

He compared his own role as a garden designer to that of a poet or composer. "Here I put a comma, there, when it's necessary to cut the view, I put a parenthesis; there I end it with a period and start on another theme."

Brown designed 170 gardens. The most important were:

· Petworth (West Sussex) in 1752;

· Chatsworth (Derbyshire) in 1761;

· Bowood (Wiltshire) in 1763;

· Blenheim Palace (Oxfordshire) in 1764.

Humphrey Repton (21 April 1752 - 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown. Repton hit upon the idea of becoming a 'landscape gardener' (a term he himself coined) after failing at various ventures and, sensing an opportunity after Brown's death, was ambitious to fill the gap and sent circulars round his contacts in the upper classes advertising his services. To help clients visualise his designs, Repton produced 'Red Books' (so called for their binding) with explanatory text and watercolours with a system of overlays to show 'before' and 'after' views.

In 1794 Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price simultaneously published vicious attacks on the 'meagre genius of the bare and bald', criticising Brown's smooth, serpentine curves as bland and unnatural and championing rugged and intricate designs, composed according to 'picturesque theory' that designed landscapes should be composed like landscape paintings, with a foreground, a middle ground and a background. Early in his career, Repton defended Brown's reputation during the 'picturesque controversy'. However, as his career progressed Repton came to apply picturesque theory to the practice of landscape design. He believed that the foreground should be the realm of art (with formal geometry and ornamental planting), that the middle ground should have a parkland character of the type created by Brown and that the background should have a wild and 'natural' character. Repton re-introduced formal terraces, balustrades, trellis work and flower gardens around the house in a way that became common practice in the nineteenth century.

Repton published three major books on garden design: Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (1795), Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803), and Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816). These drew on material and techniques used in the Red Books.

It should be noticed that the English garden spreads to the continent. Descriptions of English gardens were first brought to France by the Abbй Le Blanc, who published accounts of his voyage in 1745 and 1751. A treatise on the English garden, Observations on Modern Gardening, written by Thomas Whately and published in London in 1770, was translated into French in 1771. After the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, French noblemen were able to voyage to England and see the gardens for themselves, and the style began to be adapted in French gardens. The new style also had the advantage of requiring fewer gardeners, and was easier to maintain, than the French garden.

One of the first English gardens on the continent was at Ermenonville, in France, built by marquis Renй Louis de Girardin from 1763 to 1776 and based on the ideals of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was buried within the park. Rousseau and the garden's founder had visited Stowe a few years earlier. Other early examples were the Dйsert de Retz, Yvelines (1774-1782); the Gardens of the Chвteau de Bagatelle, in the Bois de Boulogne, west of Paris (1777-1784); The Folie Saint James, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, (1777-1780); and the Chвteau de Mйrйville, in the Essonne department, (1784-1786). Even at Versailles, the home of the most classical of all French gardens, a small English landscape park with a roman temple was built by the Petit Trianon and a mock village, the Hameau de la reine, Versailles (1783-1789), was created for Marie Antoinette.

The new style also spread to Germany. The central Wцrlitzer Park, adjacent to the small town of Wцrlitz, was laid out between 1769 and 1773 by Duke Leopold III, based on the models of Claremont, Stourhead and Stowe Landscape Garden. Another notable example was The Englischer Garten in Munich, Germany, created in 1789 by Sir Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814).

The style also spread rapidly to Russia, where in 1774 Catherine the Great adapted the new style in the park of her palace at Tsarskoe Selo, complete with a mock Chinese village and a Palladian bridge, modeled after that at Wilton House.

1.2 Architecture within a landscape Park

The history of landscape architecture is related to the history of gardening but is not coextensive. Both arts are concerned with the composition of planting, landform, water, paving and other structures but:

* Garden design is essentially concerned with enclosed private space (parks, gardens etc.).

* Landscape design is concerned with the design of enclosed space, as well as unenclosed space which is open to the public (town squares, country parks, park systems, greenways etc.).

The Romans undertook landscape architecture on an extensive scale, and Vitruvius wrote on many topics (e.g. the layout of towns) which still concern landscape architects. As with the other arts, it was not until the Renaissance that garden design was revived, with outstanding examples including the pleasure grounds at the Villa d'Este, Tivoli. The renaissance garden developed through the 16th and 17th centuries, reaching an ultimate grandeur in the work of Andrй le Nфtre at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles.

In the 18th century, England became the focus of a new style of landscape design. Figures such as William Kent, Humphry Repton, and most famously Lancelot 'Capability' Brown remodelled the great estate parks of the English gentry to resemble a neat and tidy version of nature. Many of these parks remain today. The term 'landscape architecture' was first used by the Scotsman Gilbert Laing Meason in the title of his book on "The Landscape Architecture of the Great Painters of Italy" (London, 1828). It was about the type of architecture found in landscape paintings. The term "landscape architecture" was then taken up by JC Loudon and AJ Downing.

Through the 19th century, urban planning became more important, and it was the combination of modern planning with the tradition of landscape gardening that gave Landscape Architecture its unique focus. In the second half of the century, Frederick Law Olmsted completed a series of parks which continue to have a huge influence on the practices of Landscape Architecture today.

1.3 Styles of gardening art in England

All the evidence shows that early British gardens were essentially rectangular walled enclosures which provided their owners with a place to grow plants and an opportunity to enjoy some of the pleasures of outdoor life. In the middle ages a garden of this type was known as a hortus conclusus. It's most important ornaments were flowers, herbs and trellis work.

The history of British garden design after 1500 and before 1650 is covered by Roy Strong in The Renaissance Garden in England. It is a history of the stages by which the hortus conclusus of the Middle Ages evolved into a British version of the Italian Renaissance garden. The accession of Henry VIII in 1509 marks the point at which gardens became a symbol of the power and prestige of the court. For two centuries after this date the kings and queens of England were leaders of taste in garden design and used their gardens, and those of their nobles, as the settings for parties, masques and other courtly festivities of the type which took place in Italian gardens. To begin with knowledge of Italian gardens arrived via France, but by 1600 travelers were returning from Italy with personal knowledge of their wonders.

Roy Strong has identified four styles of garden design which flourished in England between 1509 and 1642. He names them:

· The Heraldic garden (1509-1558),

· The Emblematic garden (1558-1603),

· The Mannerist garden (1603-1625),

· The Eclectic garden (1625-1642).

The physical details and the symbolic significance of these styles are analyzed by Strong with great skill but he acknowledges that even the sophisticated Mannerist garden 'essentially remains, however, the old hortus conclusus. It is a walled enclosure within which nature tamed by art is made to fulfill the wildest of Mannerist fantasies, above all by means of the new hydraulics.

From the point of view of the future development of British gardens the most important of the styles identified by Strong was the Eclectic garden. It is well represented by Moor Park in Hertfordshire. Sir William Temple, whose influence on the subsequent history of British gardens was discussed in the previous chapter, greatly admired this garden as a young man. He spent his honeymoon there in 1655 and remembered it as 'the sweetest place, I think, that I have ever seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad'. His description of Moor Park is one of the best surviving accounts of a garden made in the years preceding the Civil War. The estate was granted to Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, by James I and the design of the garden is attributed by Strong to Isaac de Caus.

Another style which emerged in England in the 18th century was picturesque, one of the growing currents of the larger Romantic movement. Garden designers like William Kent and Capability Brown emulated the allegorical landscape paintings of European artists, especially Claude Lorraine, Poussin and Salvator Rosa. The manicured hills, lakes and trees dotted with allegorical temples were sculpted into the land.

By the 1790s there was a reaction against these stereotypical compositions; a number of thinkers began to promote the idea of picturesque gardens. The leader of the movement was landscape theorist William Gilpin, an accomplished artist known for his realistic depictions of Nature. He preferred the natural landscape over the manicured and urged designers to respond to the topography of a given site. He also noted that while classical beauty was associated with the smooth and neat, picturesque beauty had a wilder, untamed quality. The picturesque style also incorporated architectural follies--castles, Gothic ruins, rustic cottages--built to add interest and depth to the landscape.

Controversy between the picturesque school and proponents of the more manicured garden raged well into the 19th century. Landscape designer Humphrey Repton supported Gilpin's ideas, particularly that of the garden harmonizing with surrounding landforms. He was attacked in the press by two rival theorists, Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price. Repton countered by highlighting the differences between painting and landscape gardening. Unlike a painting, the viewer moves through a garden, constantly shifting viewpoints.

The French landscape garden, also called the jardin anglais or jardin picturesque, was influenced by contemporary English gardens. Rococo features like Turkish tents and Chinese bridges are prevalent in French gardens in the 18th century. The French Picturesque garden style falls into two categories: those that were staged, almost like theatrical scenery, usually rustic and exotic, called jardin anglo-chinois, and those filled with pastoral romance and bucolic sentiment, influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The former style is represented by the Dйsert de Retz and Parc Monceau, the latter by the Moulin Jolie.

The rusticity found in French Picturesque gardens is also derived from an admiration of Dutch 17th century landscape painting and works of French 18th century artists Claude-Henri Watelet, Franзois Boucher and Hubert Robert. English gardens: the common name in the English speaking world, of interpretations, derivations, and revivals in the style of the original Landscape Garden examples.

Another style of gardening that deserves our attention is the 'Gardenesque' style. The 'Gardenesque' style of English garden design evolved during the 1820s from Humphry Repton's Picturesque or 'Mixed' style, largely under the impetus of J.C. Loudon, who invented the term.

In a Gardenesque plan, all the trees, shrubs and other plants are positioned and managed in such a way that the character of each plant can be displayed to its full potential. With the spread of botany as a suitable avocation for the enlightened, the Gardenesque tended to emphasize botanical curiosities and a collector's approach. New plant material that would have seemed bizarre and alien in earlier gardening found settings: Pampas grass from Argentina and Monkey-puzzle trees. Winding paths linked scattered plantings. The Gardenesque approach involved the creation of small-scale landscapes, dotted with features and vignettes, to promote beauty of detail, variety and mystery, sometimes to the detriment of coherence. Artificial mounds helped to stage groupings of shrubs, and island beds became prominent features.

1.4 The concept of the English Park and the main principles of its creation

Key design elements of the natural garden in English style:

1. When creating such a garden seek to preserve the natural topography, soils, and existing plants.

2. Provides for the establishment as soon as possible a variety of habitats - from dry creek to a deep reservoir of solar clearing up the gloomy forest.

3. Representatives of the world of plant species are more preferred than the varietal.

4. Some corners of the garden are not consciously learn, leaving them intact.

The park, designed in this style, has different sense of the natural aesthetics. It's filled with interrelated elements of relief, alternating terrain contours, contrasts the water surface and a small waterfall. The main principle of the English fleet in landscape art - it is natural and soft lines and songs, the smooth contours of the asymmetry. The smooth lines and tortuosity are present in all elements of the landscape design - in the form of weeping trees, natural stone and even the roofs of houses do not stay on the sidelines. This style involves the free, natural landscape layout, straightness and symmetry is completely eliminated.

One of the main feature of the natural style is the lack of artificial landscapes and a hint of its man-made origin. Often is used "chaotic", and at the same time, carefully thought-out arrangement of parts and components. Harmony of the combined elements is the main measure of completeness landscape.

Landscape style, as opposed to the regular style, not separates the garden. On the contrary, it becomes an integral part of the landscape. In this garden a person feels as a part of nature, not its master. In fact, this natural beauty - is the result of meticulous planning and the efforts of the gardener who maintains strict order here.

On the one hand, this style is differs by particular liberty, and on the other - it is as closely as possible to nature. English Park is a lot like wood - hard ennobled, but at the same time devoid of any artificiality.

An important role in the British landscape style plays water bodies, be it a pond, a stream, a small waterfall or cascade, and even decorative swamp. They are distinct natural. The banks of water bodies are not chained to stone of the embankments. Although it is typical for parks a rugged coastline, a natural frame (gravel, sand, coastal plants), bridges, ladders or easy descent to the water.

The Obligatory feature of the park of the landscape style is uneven relief with ravines, natural and artificial hills, ponds of irregular shapes, mimicking the natural landscape.

The architectural structures complement and enrich the landscape. The garden's parts are combined by winding paths which are made of natural materials: rough stone, the lawn and etc. If you follow an ingenious way, you can see the picturesque scenery change. The prospect is opened gradually, but not the points from which you can overlook the entire garden.

The beauty in the landscape park is based on definite order. Plants are planted in tiers - big trees, underbrush, shrubs, flowers, lawn. For these compositions that mimic the natural landscape, the participants are chosen which are combined with each other in color and texture. Often in the design of an English garden are taken into account seasonal changes in color of leaves, grass and flowers. That is why the same landscape gardens look great in summer and autumn, and even in winter. In the landscaped gardens eatable plants (vegetables, fruits, and herbs) are often coexist with purely decorative (flowers).

Asymmetrical elements of the garden allow you to feel more closely the nature, mentally go through all the nooks and crannies, to understand the great meaning, which lies in simplicity.

Borders are decorated in the form of picturesque hills chaotically interwoven plants. Climbing plants freely climb the walls of the house, the trunks of trees and shrubs. The bushes are cut only in those cases when it is necessary to get rid of the sick and unnecessary branches, but their appearance remains natural. Formation of the crown is made in rare and special cases. Elements of landscape style give the impression of maturity, even if the garden is relatively young, especially in cases where you want to hide unsightly structures under the cover of dense foliage.

English landscape garden has many faces.

Few flowers are planted in British parks, they can be seen near the house or you can see scattered spots throughout the site, the focus makes on combining shape, texture and color. Trees have several tiers (as in nature). Linden tree can grow around a hawthorn bush, and their trunks are elegantly cover small cotoneaster shrubs, nine-bark. The tracks run down the winding line, filled with fine gravel or stone riprap, or you can use a paving slab. The green open spaces delight the eye with their heterogeneity, unobtrusive. Here you can see a variety of combinations of herbs.

Dominant in this style does not exist, the house is shown in lush greenery and seemingly becomes an integral part of the landscape. The absence of the axes in the planning of the garden and a clear track allows you to experience the freedom and feel calm.

As this style is mainly created on the basis of the existing landscape, it requires a small cost, but sometimes, on the contrary, it is required to transform a nondescript landscape so that it is necessary not only to create a natural composition, but also to think about regularity, and harmony. This requires an excellent knowledge of the vegetation of the area, a sense of aesthetic beauty and the pursuit of perfection.

2. English gardens

2.1 Studley Royal Park

Studley Royal Park including the ruins of Fountains Abbey is a designated World Heritage Site in North Yorkshire, England. The site, which has an area of 323 hectares (800 acres) features an 18th century landscaped garden, some of the largest Cistercian ruins in Europe, a Jacobean mansion and a Victorian church designed by William Burges. It was developed around the ruins of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey.

Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 by Benedictine monks who left St Mary's Abbey, York to follow the Cistercian order. After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII, the Abbey buildings and over 500 acres (200 ha) of land were sold by the Crown to Sir Richard Gresham, a merchant. The property was passed down through several generations of Sir Richard's family, then sold to Stephen Proctor who built Fountains Hall probably between 1598 and 1604. The hall is a Jacobean mansion, built partly with stone from the Abbey ruins. Fountains Abbey mill is the only 12th-century Cistercian cornmill left in the UK and the oldest 'intact' building on the estate.

John Aislabie inherited the Studley estate from his elder brother in 1693. He was the Tory Member of Parliament for Ripon in 1695, and in 1718 became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Aislabie was a principal sponsor of the South Sea Company scheme, the bill for which was promoted by him personally. In 1720 when this vast financial operation collapsed, he was expelled from Parliament and disqualified for life from public office.

Aislabie returned to Yorkshire and devoted himself to the creation of the garden he had begun in 1718. After his death in 1742, his son William extended his scheme by purchasing the remains of the Abbey and Fountains Hall. He extended the landscaped area in the picturesque romantic style, contrasting with the formality of his father's work. Between them, the two created what is arguably England's most important 18th century Water Garden.

After William's death, the estate passed to his daughter Elizabeth Allanson and then to her niece, Mrs Elizabeth Sophie Lawrence, who lived there from 1808 until her death in 1845. It then devolved to Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, a distant relative on whose death in 1859 the estate passed to his nephew the Marquess of Ripon, the Viceroy of India, who built St Mary's church in the park. On the death of Frederick Robinson, 2nd Marquess of Ripon in 1923, the estate was acquired by his cousin Clare George Vyner.

In 1966 the estate was bought by West Riding County Council and in 1983 was taken over by the National Trust.

Studley Royal House (or Hall) stood in the north-west corner of the park. Originally a medieval manor house, having a main block with forward projecting wings, it burned down in 1716 and was rebuilt by John Aislabie. He filled in the centre, to which his son William added a portico in 1762 to complete its Palladian appearance. The building was destroyed by fire in 1946. A large stable block, built between 1728 and 1732, survived and is now a private house.

In 1966 the estate was purchased by West Riding County Council and was acquired by the National Trust in 1983. The Abbey precinct is managed by English Heritage on behalf of the National Trust. In 1986 the entire Park was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

2.2 Stowe Landscape Gardens

In the 1690s, Stowe had a modest early-baroque parterre garden, owing more to Italy than to France, but it has not survived, and, within a relatively short time, Stowe became widely renowned for its magnificent gardens created by Lord Cobham. The Landscape Garden was created in three main phases, showing the development of garden design in 18th-century England (this is the only garden where all three designers worked):

From 1711 to c.1735 Charles Bridgeman was the garden designer, and John Vanbrugh from c.1720 until his death in 1726 the architect, they designed an English baroque park, inspired by the work of London, Wise and Switzer. After Vanbrugh's death James Gibbs took over as architect in September 1726, he also worked in the English Baroque style.

In 1731 William Kent was appointed to work with Bridgeman, whose last designs are dated 1735 after which Kent took over as the garden designer. Kent had already created the glorious garden at Rousham House, and he and Gibbs built temples, bridges, and other garden structures. Kent's masterpiece at Stowe is the Elysian Fields with its Temple of Ancient Virtue that looks across to his Temple of British Worthies, Kent's architectural work was in the newly fashionable Palladian style.

In March 1741, Capability Brown was appointed head gardener. He worked with Gibbs until 1749 and with Kent until the latter's death in 1748. Brown departed in the autumn of 1751 to start his independent career as a garden designer. In these years, Bridgeman's octagonal pond and 11-acre (4.5 ha) lake were extended given a "naturalistic" shape, and a Palladian bridge was added in 1744 probably to Gibbs's design. Brown contrived a Grecian valley which, despite its name, is an abstract composition of landform and woodland and developed the Hawk well Field, with Gibbs's most notable building the Gothic Temple (now one of the properties owned and maintained by The Landmark Trust). As Loudon remarked in 1831, "nature has done little or nothing; man a great deal, and time has improved his labors".

After Brown left, Earl Temple who had inherited Stowe from his uncle Lord Cobham, turned to a garden designer called Richard Woodward, who had been gardener at Wotton House the Earl's previous home. The work of naturalizing the landscape started by Brown was continued under Woodward, this was accomplished by the mid-1750s. At the same time Earl Temple turned his attention to the various temples and monuments. He altered several of Vanbrugh's and Gibbs's temples to make them conform to his taste for Neoclassical architecture, to accomplish this he employed Giovanni Battista Borra from 1752 to 1756, also at this time several monuments were moved to other parts of the garden. Earl Temple made further alterations in the gardens from the early 1760s, this is when several of the older structures were demolished and this time he turned to his cousin Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford who was assisted by Borra, whose most notable design was the Corinthian Arch.

The next owner of Stowe, the Marquess of Buckingham made relatively few changes to the gardens, he planted the two main approach avenues, added 28-acre (11 ha) to the garden east of the Cobham Monument and altered a few buildings, Vincenzo Valdrи was his architect, most notably the Queen's Temple and built a few new structures, such as The Menagerie with its formal garden and the Buckingham Lodges at the southern end of the Grand Avenue. He also created the formal gardens within the balustrade he added to the south front of the house and demolished a few more monuments in the gardens.

The last significant changes to the gardens were made by the next two owners of Stowe, the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, he succeeded in buying the Lamport Estate in 1826, this was immediately to the east of the gardens, adding 17 acres (6.9 ha) to the south-east of the gardens to form the Lamport gardens, this work was overseen by the head gardener, James Brown, he remodelled the eastern arm of the Octagon Lake and created a cascade beyond the Palladian Bridge, from 1840 2nd Duke of Buckingham's gardener Mr Ferguson created rock and water gardens in the new garden, the architect Edward Blore was also employed to build the Lamport Lodge and Gates as a carriage entrance, he also remodelled the Water Stratford Lodge at the start of the Oxford Avenue.

As Stowe evolved from an English baroque garden into a pioneering landscape park, the gardens became an attraction for many of the nobility, including political leaders. Indeed, Stowe is said to be the first English garden for which a guide book was produced. Wars and rebellions were reputedly discussed among the garden's many temples; the artwork of the time reflected this by portraying caricatures of the better-known politicians of history taking their ease in similar settings. Stowe began to evolve into a series of natural views to be appreciated from a perambulation rather than from a well-chosen central point. In their final form the Gardens were the largest and most elaborate example of what became known in Europe as the English garden. The main gardens, enclosed within the ha-has (sunken or trenched fences) over four miles (6 km) in length, cover over 400 acres (160 ha), but the park also has many buildings, including gate lodges and other monuments.

Many of the temples and monuments in the garden celebrate the political ideas of the Whig party and include quotes by many of the writers who are part of Augustan literature, also philosophers and ideas belonging to the Age of Enlightenment.

The fame of the gardens was spread by various means.

2.3 Eden Project

architecture gardening brirish

The Eden Project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. Inside the artificial biomes are plants that are collected from all around the world. The project is located in a reclaimed Kaolinite pit, located 1.25 mi (2 kilometers) from the town of St Blaze and 5 kilometers (3 mi) from the larger town of St Austell, Cornwall.

The complex is dominated by two huge enclosures consisting of adjoining domes that house thousands of plant species, and each enclosure emulates a natural biome. The domes consist of hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal, inflated, plastic cells supported by steel frames. The first dome emulates a tropical environment and the second a Mediterranean environment.

The project was conceived by Tim Smit and designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw and engineering firm Anthony Hunt and Associates (now part of Sinclair Knight Merz). Davis Langdon carried out the project management, Sir Robert McAlpine and Alfred McAlpine did the construction, MERO designed and built the biomes, and Arup was the services engineer, economic consultant, environmental engineer and transportation engineer. Land Use Consultants led the master plan and landscape design. The project took 2Ѕ years to construct and opened to the public on 17 March 2001.

Once into the attraction, there is a meandering path with views of the two biomes, planted landscapes, including vegetable gardens, and sculptures that include a giant bee and towering robot created from old electrical appliances.

At the bottom of the pit are two covered biomes:

The Tropical Biome, covers 1.56 hectares (3.9 acres) and measures 55 metres (180 ft) high, 100 metres (328 ft) wide and 200 metres (656 ft) long. It is used for tropical plants, such as fruiting banana trees, coffee, rubber and giant bamboo, and is kept at a tropical temperature and moisture level.

The Mediterranean Biome covers 0.654 hectares (1.6 acres) and measures 35 metres (115 ft) high, 65 metres (213 ft) wide and 135 metres (443 ft) long. It houses familiar warm temperate and arid plants such as olives and grape vines and various sculptures.

The Outdoor Biome (which is not covered) represents the temperate regions of the world with plants such as tea, lavender, hops, hemp and sunflowers.

The covered biomes are constructed from tubular steel (hex-tri-hex) with mostly hexagonal external cladding panels made from the thermoplastic ETFE. Glass was avoided due to its weight and potential dangers. The cladding panels themselves are created from several layers of thin UV-transparent ETFE film, which are sealed around their perimeter and inflated to create a large cushion. The resulting cushion acts as a thermal blanket to the structure. The ETFE material is resistant to most stains, which simply wash off in the rain. If required, cleaning can be performed by abseilers. Although the ETFE is susceptible to punctures, these can be easily fixed with ETFE tape. The structure is completely self-supporting, with no internal supports, and takes the form of a geodesic structure. The panels vary in size up to 9 meters (29.5 ft) across, with the largest at the top of the structure.

The ETFE technology was supplied and installed by the firm Vector Foiltec, which is also responsible for ongoing maintenance of the cladding. The steel space frame and cladding package (with Vector Foiltec as ETFE subcontractor) was designed, supplied and installed by MERO (UK) PLC, who also jointly developed the overall scheme geometry with the architect, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners.

The entire build project was managed by McAlpine Joint Venture.

The Core is the latest addition to the site and opened in September 2005. It provides the Eden Project with an education facility, incorporating classrooms and exhibition spaces designed to help communicate Eden's central message about the relationship between people and plants. Accordingly, the building has taken its inspiration from plants, most noticeable in the form of the soaring timber roof, which gives the building its distinctive shape.

Grimshaw developed the geometry of the copper-clad roof in collaboration with a sculptor, Peter Randall-Page, and Mike Purvis of structural engineers SKM Anthony Hunts. It is derived from phyllotaxis, which is the mathematical basis for nearly all plant growth; the "opposing spirals" found in many plants such as the seeds in a sunflower's head, pine cones and pineapples. The copper was obtained from traceable sources, and the Eden Project is working with Rio Tinto to explore the possibility of encouraging further traceable supply routes for metals, which would enable users to avoid metals mined unethically. The services and acoustic design was carried out by Buro Happold.

The mechanical and electrical engineering design was by Buro Happold. At the insistence of architect Jolyon Brewis (Grimshaw) the photovoltaic (PV) array on the roof of the core building was arranged in an inclined circle for aesthetic reasons. However this arrangement ensures that more than half of the panels never receive direct sunlight. At the time of installation the electrical engineer making connections deemed that it was not worth while to connect these panels, as their potential to generate electricity was so limited. The value of the panels at the time of installation was around Ј260,000. The domes provide diverse growing conditions, and many plants are on display.

The Eden Project includes environmental education focusing on the interdependence of plants and people; plants are labelled with their medicinal uses. The massive amounts of water required to create the humid conditions of the Tropical Biome, and to serve the toilet facilities, are all sanitized rain water that would otherwise collect at the bottom of the quarry. The only mains water used is for hand washing and for cooking. The complex also uses Green Tariff Electricity -- the energy comes from one of the many wind turbines in Cornwall, which were among the first in Europe.

2.4 National Botanic Garden of Wales

The Middleton family from Oswestry built a mansion here in the early 17th century. In 1789 Sir William Paxton bought the estate for Ј40,000 to create a water park. He used his great wealth to employ some of the finest creative minds of his day, including the eminent architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, whom he commissioned to design and build a new Middleton Hall, turning the original one into a farm. The new Middleton Hall became `one of the most splendid mansions in South Wales' which `far eclipsed the proudest of the Cambrian mansions in Asiatic pomp and splendor'.

Paxton created an ingenious water park. Water flowed around the estate via a system of interconnecting lakes, ponds and streams linked by a network of dams, water sluices, bridges and cascades. Spring water was stored in elevated reservoirs that fed into a lead cistern on the mansion's roof, allowing Paxton's residence to enjoy piped running water and the very latest luxury, water closets.

In 1806, Saxton engaged Pepys Cockerell again to design and then over see the construction of Paxton's Tower on the estate, which was completed in 1809. A Neo-Gothic folly erected in honour of Lord Nelson, it is situated on a hilltop near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley. Today the folly is now owned by the National Trust. By the time of Paxton's death in 1824, Middleton Hall estate covered some 2,650 acres (1,070 ha).

Middleton Hall estate was sold to Jamaican-born West India merchant, Edward Hamlin Adams, for Ј54,700. Neither a gardener nor a lover of water features, while adding buildings that aided his love of country sports, the bath houses quickly fell into disrepair, and only the gardens immediately visible from the house were maintained.

In 1842 the estate passed into the hands of his eccentric son Edward, who immediately changed his name from Adams into the Welsh form Abadam. Not loving the country or gardens, according to his estate manager Thomas Cooke, Edward was a social nightmare. As his son predeceased him, on his death in 1875 the estate passed to his daughter, who had married into the local Hughes family. In 1919 the estate changed hands again when Major William J. H. Hughes sold it to Colonel William N. Jones.

In 1931, the mansion was completely gutted by fire, leaving only the walls standing, themselves covered in globules of molten lead from the melted roof. After this the estate fell into decline, and 20 years later the walls of the main house were pulled down. The site was then bought by Carmarthenshire County Council, and leased to young farmers hoping to make their way into an agricultural career.

In 1978, interest had been captured by local walkers, who were keen to revive the splendour of what they could see around them. Setting up a fund raising scheme, the little money raised led to the rediscovery of a number of historical features.

The idea for a National Botanic Garden of Wales originated from the Welsh artist, William Wilkins, whose aunt had described to him the ruins of an elaborate water features she had discovered while walking in the local woods at Pont Felin Gat. Under the guidance of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, an application was made to the Millennium Commission to fund Britain's first national botanic garden for 200 years.

Virtually on the site of Cockerell's mansion, the Great Glasshouse now forms the centrepiece. Much of the original water-scape has been restored, and extended by introducing cascades to the western approach to the Glasshouse. The extraordinary original view the east side of the mansion offered over the grounds has been restored, extending as originally to Paxton's Tower in the distance. Many experts have commented that this view gives visitors an ability to see and hence understand something of what the great landscape architects of the end of the eighteenth century understood by the word “Picturesque”.

The Garden was opened to the public for the first time on 24 May 2000, and was officially opened on 21 July by the Prince of Wales. In 2003, the garden ran into serious financial difficulties, and in 2004 it accepted a financial package from the Welsh Assembly Government, Carmarthenshire County Council and the Millennium Commission to secure its future.

The site extends to 568 acres (2.30 km2), and among the garden's rare and threatened plants is the white beam Sorbus leyana. 21st Century approaches to recycling and conservation have been used in the design of the centre: biomass recycling is used to provide heating for some of the facilities such as the visitor center and glasshouses.

Placed virtually on the same site as Paxton's new but now demolished Middleton Hall, the Great Glasshouse, designed by Foster and Partners, is the largest structure of its kind in the world. The structure is 95 m (312 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, with a roof containing 785 panes of glass. Housing plants from several Mediterranean climate regions, the plants are divided into sections from Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean itself.

The Double Walled Garden has been rebuilt from the ruins, and is being developed to house a wide variety of plants, including a modern interpretation of a kitchen garden in one quarter, and ornamental beds to display the classification and evolution of all flowering plant families in the other three quarters.

In 2007, a new Tropical Glasshouse, designed by Welsh architect John Belle, was opened to continue the classification displays with tropical monocotyledons.

Conclusion

Landscaping was a subsphere of human activity, providing artificial means to form the necessary environment, to create the necessary impression, mood and harmony of land and dwelling. The tools for creating this harmony are man-made, but the material is given by nature and its surroundings. A harmonious solution in the field of landscape design is to create a moral and aesthetic comfort, pleasure, to enjoy life, and spend leisure time. The area making landscaping and gardening includes the ability to create and decorate gardens, parks, so as to make the living or working environment of everyday life.

Garden design is considered to be an art in most cultures. The ancient world offers a diverse record of the emergence of garden art. The history of garden art includes information on how plants, flowers and trees were used as carefully planned elements in landscaping. Gardens had many purposes, including providing a place of relaxation for gods and royalty. Historically, other visual arts depicted garden art's importance by serving as a pictorial record.

English gardens are famous the world over for their beautiful designs, peaceful layouts and stunning and fragrant flowers. Country house gardens as depicted in classic BBC adaptations such as Pride and Prejudice are the envy of many, both in the UK and abroad.

Present paper is based on historical facts. Much attention was paid to the historical background of the British gardens, their common features. In my work only four gardens were described and according to them we can see the most important basic principles of garden designs which are distinguished them from other world's gardens.

The most interesting British park, which I have already described, is Eden Project. The project is constructed in a disused china clay pit. Once into the attraction, there is a meandering path with views of the two biomes, planted landscapes, including vegetable gardens, and sculptures that include a giant bee and towering robot called RSA WEEE Man created from old electrical appliances. So this garden consider to be the most famous and attractive garden through the world.

Another idea to which we came across in the end in my course book is that gardening should be differ from farming.

In conclusion I'd like to add that the history of gardens seems to go back to the earliest of human societies. Gardens represent many things, but perhaps most of all they represent peace and happiness. In many mythologies human kind was at its happiest living in a garden.

Размещено на Allbest.ru