The gardens at Leigh Park, (now Staunton Country Park, Havant, Hampshire) combined many of the key elements of a nineteenth-century pleasure garden, although it was not classed as such until 1827. This status may have been given in 1827 due to the changes made to the estate gardens by George Staunton as not only did he develop the grounds with decorations associated with pleasure gardens, but ensured that they were opened for public use. It may further be suggested that this status was gained due to the changes made by Staunton as it was not awarded during William Garrett’s ownership, or in the earlier years of Staunton’s ownership. There is an argument, however, that the pleasure gardens at Leigh Park were short lived as William Stone’s changes to the gardens in the 1860s rearranged the estate and removed many of the key features of the gardens which had made it a pleasure ground. As a result Leigh Park not only demonstrates somewhat short-lived gimmicks such as ferme ornée but the extent to which gentlemen focussed on their gardens to create their perfect landscape. However, the presence of elements which were considered by contemporaries as gimmicks, such as the ferme ornée shows that Leigh Park was not the perfect pleasure garden as clearly the owners did not always follow the trends. This does not mean that it cannot be used to demonstrate changes which occurred in garden design as the fact that the estate maintained its ferme ornée and Chinese architecture despite their fading popularity illustrates the speed with which changes in taste took effect. The changes in garden design, and the effects on pleasure gardens was also dependent on the personal tastes of owners, a fact which is only too demonstrable on the grounds of Leigh Park as each owner left their mark on the estate. There is a problem in demonstrating the changes in pleasure ground design on the Leigh Park estate in that large parts have been altered or removed as well as the records lost, thus creating a difficulty in being able to demonstrate the full extent to which any remaining nineteenth-century pleasure garden truly represents the changes in style across the period.
The layouts of nineteenth century pleasure gardens were dependent on ground forms as well as the position of buildings within the grounds. John Claudius Loudon recommended that kitchen gardens should be built on level grounds while the rest of the grounds should be arranged in line with the house, as well as that houses should be positioned where they would have the best, and multiple, views of the grounds. Loudon’s guide may appear to be for those who were able to arrange their grounds and house from new, Humphrey Repton also advocated the changing of landscapes to hide the house from public view. This might therefore suggest that there was a trend throughout the nineteenth century for designing the garden to better suit the house. This can be demonstrated through properties such as Leigh Park as George Staunton moved the Havant to Rowlands Castle road in order to have a more private view from the house. Leigh Park also illustrates how landscape was increasingly rearranged and changed to suit the desires or needs of the owner; in some instances, this was as simple as ornamental water features such as Leigh Water, constructed between 1828 and 1836. This process could also be more complicated, on the same estate William Stone had the ground layout changed in order to build a house which over looked the estate which included filling Middle Thicket Lane and levelling the grounds. Changes to the landscape such as this not only demonstrates the individuality of pleasure gardens but also the strong correlation between the positioning of the house and garden layout.
The country house was not the only building to affect the layout of the pleasure garden; many estates had farm buildings and staff cottages to incorporate into the grounds. In some instances, this problem was solved by having estate buildings away from the view of the house or in areas where they were less obtrusive. At Leigh Park for example, the estate buildings with the exception of the farm were built in unobtrusive areas such as lodges on the edges of the estate while the gardeners cottage was built on an island on Leigh Water around 1832. Arrangements such as this might suggest that estate owners would house their staff provided that it suited the aesthetics of the estate and pleasure gardens. Farm buildings appear to have posed the largest problem in making practical buildings match the aesthetics of the estate, on some estates the farm and buildings are separated from the main estate by a road such as at the Leigh Park Estate prior to 1828. Developed in the eighteenth-century there was a trend known as ferme ornée to make farm buildings look more attractive; R. W. King says that the definition of ferme ornée was based around the farm Phillip Southcote developed in the 1730s, simply a farm which was decorated to look attractive. Contemporaries such as John Plaw believed that farm buildings could be decorated as the owner liked, thus suggesting that decorated farms were not necessarily a part of the ferme ornée style. This trend continued into the nineteenth-century although Tom Turner argues that ferme ornées largely featured on estates which followed a Serpentine style, thus showing that this style of farm building was only suited to this style, further implying that other ferme ornées were simply decorated farms.
There were, however, as many critics of this style as there were those who encouraged it, King argues that Repton believed they were detrimental to both a working farm and a pleasure garden. The survival of ferme ornées such as that at Leigh Park counters the view that they were not necessarily a short-term gimmick or detrimental to estates. Archaeological evidence from Leigh Park might give the impression that the farm was a ferme ornée as it appeared the farmhouse garden had a lawn. However, the Historic England records for Leigh Park imply that there was a regency farmhouse as well as a ferme ornée, supporting the idea that the definition of a ferme ornée changed throughout the nineteenth-century with this ferme ornée perhaps being closer to the current petting farm and gardens. This further supported by Steve Jones’ argument that William Garrett converted the farm into a ferme ornée in the early nineteenth-century, this therefore demonstrates that the definition of ferme ornées changed as well as the impact this style had on estate layouts.
The physical layout of a pleasure garden can also be changed with the use of vistas and water features, contemporary gardeners such as Loudon argued that walks were important to gardens. This may have led to estate owners such as Stone to have a greater number of walks and vistas. While it could be construed that the influence of gardeners such as Loudon did influence Stone in creating new vistas and avenues on the Leigh Park estate, there is an argument that in creating new walks damaged the beauty of the pleasure gardens. It could further be suggested that contemporary gardeners had an influence on pleasure gardens, there is not always evidence of this impact, for example at Leigh Park it could be imagined that Loudon’s advice to use trees to emphasize the size of water features might have influenced the planting styles, although there is no evidence for this. Thus it may be suggested that contemporary writers did have an impact on the design of pleasure gardens, however this is difficult to prove, particularly in estates, such as Leigh Park, for which few records survive.
The layout of estates can also be controlled with the use of themed gardens and the order in which they would have been viewed. There were many different styles and themes in garden design; while some, such as the Dutch and French styles were similar, David Watkin suggests that Repton created fifteen styles of garden which included arboretums. Having such a broad range of styles of garden not only allowed pleasure gardens to have a sense of individuality but may have allowed the owners to make their mark on the estate as well as enabling pleasure gardens with similar themes to look very different. At Leigh Park it is fairly evident that Staunton’s background had a considerable effect on the themes used within the gardens, Nigel Leask argues that Staunton tried to recreate the Gardens of Gehol within the grounds of Leigh Park. Although Leask argues that this demonstrated ‘oriental despotism’ there is an argument that it was common place for garden themes to based around the styles of another nation, including China which was most noticeably shown through garden architecture such as pagodas.
Nationally themed gardens did appear to dominate nineteenth-century pleasure gardens but by the nineteenth-century certain themes were in decline, including Chinese themed gardens, in fact Watkin suggests that the Chinese garden at Alton Towers, Staffordshire, completed in 1827 was the last of its kind to be created. This may explain why there was no Chinese garden at Leigh Park, although Maldwin Drummond suggests that the shape of Leigh Water was designed to resemble Chinese water features. The inclusion of Chinese architecture here might also imply that this was a subtle Chinese garden created for Staunton’s pleasure as opposed to the pleasure of his visitors. This can further be supported by Staunton’s close links with China as he was brought up with a familiarity with Chinese plants and garden designs. It could further be suggested that Staunton’s experience of Empire encouraged his choice of exotic plants as there is an argument that the use of exotic plants in pleasure gardens throughout the nineteenth century demonstrated support for Empire. However, the growing unpopularity of Chinese gardens throughout the nineteenth-century might counter this and could be illustrated by the removal of the Chinese architecture at Leigh Park by Stone during the second half of the nineteenth-century. This is further supported by Barbara Jones’ claim that many Anglo-Chinese gardens have been re-landscaped or allowed to become overgrown. This therefore demonstrates the temporality of garden designs and the changes in taste throughout the nineteenth-century.
While Chinese gardens may have become less popular during the nineteenth-century, other themes remained popular which helped create varied views around a garden. Turner, for example argued that the Italian style of gardening reintroduced a formal style of gardening during the early nineteenth-century. This was an approach which Tom Carter suggests was becoming popular again throughout the period as he argues flower gardens were always organised into certain categories such as a general flower garden with mass groups of specific kinds of flowers. These styles of gardening did affect the designs of individual gardens but there is an argument that pleasure gardens such as that at Leigh Park consisted of individual themed gardens creating different interests for visitors. Although the most common themes for gardens throughout the nineteenth-century appear to be in French, Dutch and American styles, pleasure gardens did not often contain every style of garden. The simplest explanation for this is that this was as a result of personal taste as well as how well funded the owners were, however, it could be suggested that this was due to the Dutch and French styles being too similar. The fact that the Dutch garden at Leigh Park, created by Garrett, survived until 1836 under Staunton shows that this style was enduring throughout the early part of the nineteenth-century.
Despite the success of themed gardens during the nineteenth-century their legacy has been superseded by the kitchen garden, although it may not necessarily be considered a part of the pleasure garden at Leigh Park the route of the walks took the visitors through the kitchen garden. This therefore demonstrates the importance of the kitchen garden to pleasure gardens as it became increasingly included in pleasure gardens throughout the nineteenth-century. Kitchen gardens were not left plain but were less highly decorated than the pleasure garden itself, often one wall of the kitchen garden would be built in a Serpentine or ‘crinkle-crankle’ style such as at Leigh Park. From a decorative perspective a discussion of a kitchen garden may not illustrate the changes in nineteenth-century pleasure gardens, however, up to the mid nineteenth-century many gardening texts rated growing vegetables more highly than flowers. This change, alongside the inclusion of kitchen gardens in pleasure gardens demonstrates how the taste of gardeners and visitors changed throughout the nineteenth-century.
Different styles of gardening valued different types of plants, flowering plants, for example, were particularly important to the Serpentine style of gardening which reached its peak during the 1780s. While it was less influential during the nineteenth-century elements of Serpentine design are still visible in gardens such as Leigh Park. Types of plants and styles of planting not only changed across the period, but Tom Williamson suggests that there were geographic differences, demonstrated through Norfolk’s preference for exotic conifers and agricultural gardens. There is an argument that the biggest changes occurring throughout the nineteenth-century were a national phenomenon, it could be suggested that these changes in planting style came as a result of the development of landscape parks during the early nineteenth-century. There was an increased advocation of the use of flowering plants in texts such as Loudon’s The Suburban Garden and Villa Companion, furthermore Brent Elliott argues that the return of flower gardens in the 1840s coincided with the arrival of exotic plants. It could therefore be suggested that this change resulted from a desire to show off new and exotic plants.
It is relatively easy to suggest that the whole concept of landscape gardening was primed for the land owners and gardeners to show off, in fact Loudon argued that landscape gardens were a form of art rather than a part of nature. The desire to show off new and exotic plants is most easily demonstrated through the use of buildings such as the Stove House at Leigh Park used to show off Waterlilies (Victoria Regia). It could be argued that there were certain types of exotic plants which were easier to grow and therefore were more frequently displayed, Monkey Puzzle trees (Araucaria Araucana), for example, were present in the grounds of both large houses such as Bicton House, Devon and smaller ones such as Leigh Park. There is, however, as sliding scale as to how difficult exotic plants to grow, while some were common place others were only seen within the botanic gardens of the wealthy or particularly keen. The Queen of the Night (Céreus Triangúlaris) was cultivated for fifteen years at Leigh Park before it flowered, this dedication as well as Staunton’s history as a botanist demonstrates that some pleasure gardens were dedicated to the cultivation of specific plants.
While there is evidence of the types of plants used in gardens where records survive, often in registers such as The Botanical Register recording newly cultivated plants, there is relatively little record of the type of plants grown throughout the nineteenth-century. During the early part of the period Repton seems to imply that the physicality of landscape gardens was more important than the plants contained within it. This view seems to have changed by the publication of The Suburban Garden and Villa Companion in 1838 as Loudon suggests that all flower gardens could contain hardy flowering plants. This may suggest that flowering plants, were particularly unimportant to landscape gardening, however texts such as An Encyclopaedia of Plants demonstrate the regard with which plants were held as texts such as this contained all the information required to identify and care for the plants. This may demonstrate the types of plants which could be found within the British Isles it does not necessarily demonstrate which plants were contained within gardens where the record no longer exists such as Leigh Park. However, archaeological evidence can illustrate where lawns and buildings were although excavations at Leigh Park imply that it is harder to find traces of smaller plants and shrubs. This therefore increases the importance of contemporary descriptions and images, as well as demonstrating the difficulties in mapping the changes in nineteenth-century pleasure gardens.
Contemporary descriptions and images are equally important when studying the ornamentations of nineteenth-century pleasure gardens. Not only have many follies, obelisks and garden seats decayed over time, but Barbara Jones argues that garden decorations became less popular after 1840. Although there was a decrease in the popularity of garden decorations, it must be acknowledged that decorations would have been moved and changed according to the tastes of individual owners. The Leigh Park estate is a particularly good example of this as very few of the mid-century ornamentations survive; the disappearance of ornamentations supports Barbara Jones’ argument as decorations which were on the estate prior to Staunton’s purchase in 1819 were largely removed, although Steve Jones suggests that the Swiss Cottage remained after the 1819 sale. The fresh start in garden design after the arrival of a new owner shows that each new owner wanted their garden to reflect their tastes. Stone’s purchase of the estate takes this argument further, as well as demonstrating Barbara Jones’ argument that follies and decorations were less popular after 1840 as from 1863 Stone had many of Staunton’s follies and statues removed.
Despite decorations in pleasure gardens becoming less popular across the nineteenth-century Barbara Jones suggests this trend for follies continued amongst the very rich until the middle of the period. Furthermore there were particular trends for types of decorations and designs which were more common than others, Barbara Jones provides evidence that obelisks were popular throughout the nineteenth-century although she argues that they were largely used to mark the end of vistas and were often unimportant. The two obelisks at Leigh Park demonstrate their popularity as a decoration, although the Canning Obelisk could be used to prove that not all obelisks were meaningless as it was built in memory of George Canning. However, Joseph Francis Gilbert’s painting Leigh Water, West View supports Barbara Jones’ argument as the second obelisk appears to be used to mark the end of a clearing without any attribution. There were however more practical garden decorations, Loudon argued that seats in gardens were a good way to add variety as well as being practical. The use of garden seats to add variety to a pleasure garden is demonstrated by different styles of seats at Leigh Park including the Look-Out and the Cross House which gave views across both the north and south gardens. While these seats may appear to be overly decorated it could be argued that these seats were used to create a point of interest in the gardens as well as to provide views across the estate unlike other carved benches across the estate, particularly as seats such as the Cross House were painted.[55] Thus showing that throughout the nineteenth-century multipurpose garden decorations were particularly highly valued.
While it could be argued that the seats at Leigh Park were decorative in order to create interest around the gardens, it could also be suggested that these ornamentations were turned into seats in order to serve a purpose. This need for ornamentations to serve a purpose can be further demonstrated with other follies at Leigh Park, the Temple, for example, was a commemoration of friends and family, complete with twenty-four busts of notable people. In contrast, Staunton’s Shell House did not seem to have a purpose when it was built in 1820 but became a place to house curiosities by 1833, this therefore suggests that throughout the nineteenth-century follies increasingly needed to serve a purpose. The fact that follies became less popular could be attributed to complications in finding original designs, Derek Gladwyn suggests that the Temple was very similar to the Temple of Flora at Stourhead, Wiltshire, thus suggesting that there were a limited number of designs that were replicated in various forms. This is further supported by the design of the Shell House which was based on the Chichester Cross, therefore it may be suggested that the declining popularity of follies may have been as a result of limited designs and purposes.
There were considerable changes to pleasure grounds throughout the nineteenth-century due to changes in fashions and, as Leigh Park demonstrates, the personal taste of owners. While gardening ideals changed, it must be demonstrated that changes which contemporaries such as Loudon and Repton were not always modelled within pleasure gardens, therefore it is not possible for one garden to demonstrate the ways in which garden design changed, let alone a relatively small one such as Leigh Park. There were, however, demonstrable changes in attitudes towards the types of plants which could be included within a pleasure garden as flower gardens become more important; estates such as Leigh Park developed a number of flower gardens as well as sweeping lawns. It could be suggested that there was a change in the way gardens were decorated as there was a move towards flower gardens at the same time as a move away from follies as a decoration. Despite this argument, different styles of flower gardens came in and out of fashion, Italian and Dutch gardens saw a revival while Chinese gardens declined in popularity. Although Leigh Park can be used to demonstrate some of the trends of nineteenth-century pleasure gardens no one garden followed all of the changes which occurred. Therefore, while it is possible to trace some of the changes in the gardens at Leigh Park, none of these changes can be demonstrated definitively at Leigh Park. Thus, it may be suggested that there were many changes throughout the nineteenth-century which were presented in different ways on different estates.
Written originally as part of my History degree at Aberystwyth University, for ‘Georgian and Victorian Landscapes’ coordinated by Professor Nigel Borsay 2017-2018
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The Colourful Historian 