Wiltshire

Stourhead Garden » Stourhead is the best example of a garden inspired by the great landscape painters of the seveneeenth century. Ernst Gombrich suggests it should bear the signature of an Italianized French painter: Claude Lorrain (1600-82). The Stourhead garden was made by a wealthy English banker who had been buying works of art in Italy at the time he inherited the Stourhead estate. Henry Hoare II's 'Claudian' garden was made in an unusually well-proportioned valley behind the house. The Temple of Flora at Stourhead was made in 1745 and the grotto in 1748. But the key date was 1754, when the lake and the Pantheon were made. It is based on the Pantheon in Rome and the planned walk through the estate is ba..... Read more on Stourhead Garden

Stourton House Flower Garden » <p>A nineteenth century house with a 4 acre plantsman's garden. It has a woodland garden, a winter garden, secret garden, lily pond and herbaceous garden. There are 270 varieties of Hydrangea.</p> Read more on Stourton House Flower Garden

Bowood Gardens » <p>An eighteenth century house and park with a nineteenth century 'Italian' garden. Lancelot Brown's plan for the park survives and is one of the clearest examples of his <a href="http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/garden_landscape_design_articles/historic_design_styles/serpentine_garden_design_style">serpentine style of garden design</a>. It has circular clumps, an encircling tree belt and a serpentine lake. A Doric temple sits beside the lake. The lake discharges via a cascade designed by <a href="http://www.gardenvisit.com/biography/charles_hamilton">Charles Hamilton</a>&nbsp;of <a href="http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/painshill_park">Painshill</a>. The conservatory was designed b..... Read more on Bowood Gardens

Longleat Garden » A great Elizabethan house (1580) with garden and park. It once had an Elizabethan garden and a park designed by London and Wise in the 1680s. Lancelot Brown re-designed them after 1757. In 1760 a visitor remarked that 'there is not much alteration in the house, but the gardens are no more. They are succeeded by a fine lawn, a serpentine river, wooded hills, gravel paths meandering round a shrubbert, all modernised by the ingenious and much sought-after Mr Brown'. Repton praised Brown for turning a little stream at Longleat into "an apparent river". Repton then deepened the lake and designed a bridge over the dam in 1804. A formal garden was added in the nineteenth century and improved by Russ..... Read more on Longleat Garden