Australian_House_&_Garden_2016_11

TRAVELLER’S NOTES

AUSTRALIAN HOUSE & GARDEN| 173

Harewood HouseIn 1776, in a five-year

project, Brown converted agricultural fields at Harewood

(above), near Leeds, to sprawling pastoral parkland.

A 1ha horseshoe-shaped lake was created by damming

the river, and with the help of 100 resting soldiers he removed

an inconvenient hill at the front of the house. Here Brown

teases visitors as they approach: the house appears,

disappears and reappears, framed by clumps of trees,

then disappears for 10 to 15 minutes, until it is almost

on top of you on arrival.

TipTour the house for its magnificent art collection.

Castle HowardWhile Brownpopularised the landscape

garden movement in the mid-1700s, it was Sir John Vanbrugh

and Nicholas Hawksmoor who helped pioneer the look earlier

thatcentury.It’sworthvisitingCastleHoward(above)inYorkshire,

aprimeexampleoftheirwork.AswithBrown’slandscapes,

everything is on a grand scale. And while it looks natural, every

element is deliberate and manmade. This stately home became

the location for Evelyn Waugh’sBridesheadevisited, the film and

TV series. In 1937, Waugh visited the castle and wrote, “a new

and secret landscape opened up before us”.

Agarden

lover’s tour

Biddulph Grange“ThisistheantithesisofaCapabilityBrown

garden,” says our guide as he ushers us through Biddulph Grange

garden (above) in Stoke-on-Trent. “Unique, crazy almost, it’s all

compartments, a world within a garden. There’s a constant sense

ofsurprise;it’snotallrevealedinonegrandview.”Sweptupbythe

Victorian fascination for new worlds, landscape gardener Edward

Cook modelled Biddulph Grange on more than a dozen themes,

each hidden from the other by playful tunnels or hedges. It includes

a pleasure garden from the Americas, a 1.5km walk of Wellingtonias

with clipped lawns, a stumpery, a Himalayan fern garden, an

Egyptian garden with two sphinxes guarding a tunnel, a Lime

Avenue and the “jewel in the crown”, a Chinese garden, complete

with a temple overlooking carp ponds, modelled on a willow

pattern. All in the middle of the Staffordshire countryside. #

WHERE TO LODGEFor the full Capability Brown

experience,besuretostayattheCavendishHotelinDerbyshire

(www.cavendish-hotel.net), from which you can approach

Chatsworth House on foot through fields and meadows. In

York, Grays Court hotel (www.grayscourtyork.com) is handy

to Harewood House and Castle Howard.

OTHER UK GARDENS YOU MAY CARE TO VISIT