Oxford

Rousham House and Garden » Rousham is the purest example of an Augustan landscape garden, designed by William Kent on a framework made by Charles Bridgeman in the 1720s. One's first Roman encounter is with statues recalling the Imperial games: a lion mauls a horse and a gladiator dies with restrained agony. A path leads into the woods and the Venus Vale, with statues of Pan, a faun, and Venus, from whom Caesar claimed descent. A sweetly serpentine rill flows in a stone channel from the Cold Bath into the Venus Vale. In another glade, a Temple overlooks the River Cherwell. The terrace overlooming the river is named the Praeneste after the ancient temple complex in the modern town of Palestrina outside Rome. Read more on Rousham House and Garden »

Stowe Landscape Garden » Stowe evolved from an English Baroque garden into a pioneering landscape park. The progression is of the greatest interest. Although the end result does not have quite the drama which one might expect from such a famous place, there are many fine buildings and composed scenes. In the 1690s Stowe had a modest early-Baroque parterre garden, owing more to Italy than to France. This has not survived. In the 1710s and '20s Charles Bridgeman (garden designer) and John Vanburgh (architect) designed an English Baroque park, inspired by the work of London, Wise and Switzer. In the 1730s William Kent and James Gibbs were appointed to work with Bridgeman, who died in 1738. Kent and Gibbs designed more ..... Read more on Stowe Landscape Garden »

Blenheim Palace Garden » An eighteenth century house and park with a nineteenth century garden. The palace, designed by Vanbrugh c1705, was the nation's reward to the first Duke of Marlborough for his victories over Louis XIV. Henry Wise designed the garden, in an Anglo-Dutch Baroque manner with a military cast. It had mock fortifications and regimented parterres. The first Duke died in 1722. During the 1720s his wife, Sarah, canalised the River Glyme and had a triumphal bridge errected. In 1764, the 4th Duke commissioned Lancelot Brown, then at the apogee of his fame. Brown transformed the park by making the canal into a serpentine lake. He also naturalised the woods, designed a cascade and placed clumps in strateg..... Read more on Blenheim Palace Garden »

Waterperry Gardens » The gardens date back to 1932 when Miss Beatrix Havergal opened her School of Horticulture for Ladies. The 8 acre ornamental gardens include a rose and formal knot garden, water-lily canal, riverside walk, and one of the finest purely herbaceous borders in the country. Herbaceous nursery stock beds provide a living catalogue of plants, and there's also an alpine garden, and the National Collection of Kabschia Saxifrages. A commercial plant centre, stocked with plants grown in on-site nurseries, occupies large areas of the beautiful walled garden, and the site also boasts a 5 acres of commercial orchards, producing the famous Waterperry apple juice each year. Gardening courses are held throug..... Read more on Waterperry Gardens »

Oxford Botanic Garden » Britain's oldest botanic garden is near the centre of the city. It is a classic seventeenth century walled garden. When founded in 1621, so much money was spent on the walls that little was left for plants. This deficiency has been remedied, with the planting design more botanical than aesthetic. Loudon described the garden as 'a venerable establishment. . . entered by a noble stone archway, through which is seen a vista to the other extremity of the garden. . . Comparing this botanic garden with with all the others in Britain, it as far surpasses them in an arachitectural point of view, as it is inferior to the best of them in botanical riches'. Nearby is a rose garden, designed by Sylvia C..... Read more on Oxford Botanic Garden »