Country House Gardens 1660 to the Mid C18 and Early C18 Parkland.
The fashion for formal landscapes, much influenced by Italian Renaissance and French Baroque gardens, increased after the Restoration in 1660. Garden compartments about the house - defined by gravel paths, balustrades or clipped hedges - typically comprised parterres with lawns, bowling greens, bosquets or ornamental woods to either side and beyond. Gardens in the Dutch style became more fashionable after the Revolution which brought William and Mary to the throne in 1688. These gardens contained complex parterres, elaborate topiary and made greater use of lead urns and statuary.
By about the 1720s, gardens were starting to become less elaborate although the designed landscape beyond often became more complex and extensive. Prospects became of growing importance to garden designers from the later C17, with views being carried into the countryside beyond by axial and radial avenues of trees and rides through woodland.
Evidence for formal late C17 and early C18 designed landscapes associated with Isle of Wight manor houses and mansions is limited.
From 1701 to c.1720 Appuldurcombe House near Wroxall (LB 1, SM) was rebuilt for Sir Robert Worsley who expanded the gardens and laid out a new park and lodge.
There is documentary, cartographic and possible cropmark evidence for Sir Robert Worsley’s early C18 gardens at Appuldurcombe but the so-called ‘Hampton Court Gate’ (LB II) appears to be the only surviving physical structure associated with these gardens, other features within the registered park (NHL II) being later.
The new park and lodge laid out by Sir Robert Worsley at Appuldurcombe was recorded in 1708. It appears to have been enclosed by a wall which is shown on John Andrews’ map of 1769.The park was expanded in the 1770s and surviving sections of park wall are thought to date from this period. However, it is possible that the wall on the north side of the park may incorporate elements from the early C18 Appuldurcombe park wall, from a C17 park wall or even from a wall relating to the deer park which may have existed at Appuldurcombe in the C16.
At Nunwell, near Brading (LB II*, NHL II), a map of 1748 shows a formal avenue of trees named ‘The Prospect’ running southward from the house towards the foot of Nunwell Down and another line of trees at a 45% angle to ‘The Prospect’. Both are typical features of late C17 or early C18 designed landscapes. A few old lime trees survive from ‘The Prospect’ and additional trees were planted in the later C20 to recreate the avenue.
At Swainston near Calbourne, a formal designed landscape is depicted on the 1769 Andrews map, the 1781 Haywood map and the unpublished Ordnance Survey drawings of 1793-4. This comprised various formal avenues cutting through a block of woodland to the north of the house and converging on a central point. There was also a straight ride with a formal circular pool in the northern part of the wood Much of the woodland has now gone but the northern portion, greatly altered, survives as Lady Wood and the circular pool within this part of the wood also survives.
It is surprising that such a formal design survived at Swainston into the late C18 when more informal landscape parks had become almost universal.
To the east of the C18 woodland at Swainston the Ordnance Survey drawings of 1793-4 depict a straight tree-lined avenue, flanked by a serpentine stream utilised as a garden feature and leading to an informal woodland pool. This may be part of a later layer in Swainston’s designed landscape (NHL II).
The fashion for formal landscapes, much influenced by Italian Renaissance and French Baroque gardens, increased after the Restoration in 1660. Garden compartments about the house - defined by gravel paths, balustrades or clipped hedges - typically comprised parterres with lawns, bowling greens, bosquets or ornamental woods to either side and beyond. Gardens in the Dutch style became more fashionable after the Revolution which brought William and Mary to the throne in 1688. These gardens contained complex parterres, elaborate topiary and made greater use of lead urns and statuary.
By about the 1720s, gardens were starting to become less elaborate although the designed landscape beyond often became more complex and extensive. Prospects became of growing importance to garden designers from the later C17, with views being carried into the countryside beyond by axial and radial avenues of trees and rides through woodland.
Evidence for formal late C17 and early C18 designed landscapes associated with Isle of Wight manor houses and mansions is limited.
From 1701 to c.1720 Appuldurcombe House near Wroxall (LB 1, SM) was rebuilt for Sir Robert Worsley who expanded the gardens and laid out a new park and lodge.
There is documentary, cartographic and possible cropmark evidence for Sir Robert Worsley’s early C18 gardens at Appuldurcombe but the so-called ‘Hampton Court Gate’ (LB II) appears to be the only surviving physical structure associated with these gardens, other features within the registered park (NHL II) being later.
The new park and lodge laid out by Sir Robert Worsley at Appuldurcombe was recorded in 1708. It appears to have been enclosed by a wall which is shown on John Andrews’ map of 1769.The park was expanded in the 1770s and surviving sections of park wall are thought to date from this period. However, it is possible that the wall on the north side of the park may incorporate elements from the early C18 Appuldurcombe park wall, from a C17 park wall or even from a wall relating to the deer park which may have existed at Appuldurcombe in the C16.
At Nunwell, near Brading (LB II*, NHL II), a map of 1748 shows a formal avenue of trees named ‘The Prospect’ running southward from the house towards the foot of Nunwell Down and another line of trees at a 45% angle to ‘The Prospect’. Both are typical features of late C17 or early C18 designed landscapes. A few old lime trees survive from ‘The Prospect’ and additional trees were planted in the later C20 to recreate the avenue.
At Swainston near Calbourne, a formal designed landscape is depicted on the 1769 Andrews map, the 1781 Haywood map and the unpublished Ordnance Survey drawings of 1793-4. This comprised various formal avenues cutting through a block of woodland to the north of the house and converging on a central point. There was also a straight ride with a formal circular pool in the northern part of the wood Much of the woodland has now gone but the northern portion, greatly altered, survives as Lady Wood and the circular pool within this part of the wood also survives.
It is surprising that such a formal design survived at Swainston into the late C18 when more informal landscape parks had become almost universal.
To the east of the C18 woodland at Swainston the Ordnance Survey drawings of 1793-4 depict a straight tree-lined avenue, flanked by a serpentine stream utilised as a garden feature and leading to an informal woodland pool. This may be part of a later layer in Swainston’s designed landscape (NHL II).