Quotations from John Claudius Loudon, FLS

“I believe that I am the first who has set out as a landscape gardener, professing to follow Mr Price's principles. How far I shall succeed in executing my plans, and introducing more of the picturesque into improved places, time alone must determine.”

"I am now twenty-three years of age, and perhaps one third of my life has passed away, and yet what have I done to benefit my fellow-men?"

"I, for one, conceive it to be my duty to state that nothing will satisfy me short of a fair Representation of the people; Election by Ballot; the gradual, but entire Appropriation by Government of the Revenues of the National Church, of the Woods and Forests, and of other Crown Lands; entire Freedom of Trade, and the Abolition of all Monopolies; a National Education Establishment substituted for the National Church Establishment; the Abolition of the law of Primogeniture and of Hereditary Titles; the pensioning off of all the branches of the Royal Family once and for ever; and a fixed income set part for the King, or by whatever name or title the chief magistrate of the country may be distinguished."

"Gardening, as an art of design and taste, may be said to have been conducted mechanically, and copied from precedents, like civil architecture, till the middle of the eighteenth century… To understand it wholly, it is necessary, in some degree, to be a gardener, a metaphysician, and a painter." JC Loudon Encyclopeadia of gardening 1822 

"Any creation to be recognised as a work of art, must be such as can never be mistaken for a work of nature." John Claudius Loudon Suburban Gardener

"Charles, the fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, abounding in wealth, always fond of architecture and gardening, but with much more fancy than sound judgement, seems to have wished to make Alton Towers different from everything else. Though he consulted almost every artist, ourselves among the number, he seems only to have done so for the purpose of avoiding whatever an artist might recommend." JC Loudon Encyclopeadia of gardening 1835

"If we except park farms, time only is requisite for the trees and hedges to render Tew Lodge the most magnificent ferme ornèe in England." JC Loudon An account of ... Tew Lodge Farm, Oxfordshire, with an opinion on the subject of breaking up grass lands. . John Claudius Loudon 1811 

"The character and general magnitude of buildings in towns ought to have some relation to the nature of the surface, the climate, and the surrounding country. A better illustration of the good effect which this would have cannot be given, than by referring to Edinburgh. There the old town, or original city, is built upon a high ridge of rock surrounded by a deep valley, formerly a large lake, and which on one side separates it from a level plain. Upon this plain is now built the new town, in regular streets and squares, the houses of which are all in the Grecian style, and built of a most beautiful yellow freestone. The old town, on the other hand, has only one principal street, which is conducted in a crooked direction along the top of the ridge, commencing on a plain where is built the Royal palace of Holyrood House… This characteristic irregularity in form and disposition, and the black colour of the old town, the beautiful symmetry and regularity of the new, the spacious bridge thrown across the valley which connects them, and the towering hills, and romantic scenery in the immediate vicinity of the whole, renders it, as confessed by all travellers, the most beautiful city in Europe." John Loudon  Country Residences 1806

"Wherever [Mr Brown’s] levelling hand has appeared, adieu to every natural beauty!- see everything give way to one uniform system of smoothing, levelling and clumping, productive of the most tiresome monotony, joined to the most disgusting formality." John Loudon Observations 

"A late attempt in parliament to enclose Hampstead Heath has called our attention to the rapid extension of buildings on every side of London, and to the duty, as we think, of government to devise some plan by which the metropolis may be enlarged so as to cover any space whatever with perfect safety to the inhabitants, in respect to the supply of provisions, water, and fresh air, and to the removal of filth of every description, the maintenance of general cleanliness, and the despatch of business.’" Gardeners' Magazine, 1829

"Our plan is very simple; that of surrounding London, as it already exists, with a zone of open country, at the distance of say one mile… [It] may contain, as the figure shows, part of Hyde Park, the Regent's Park, Islington, Bethnal Green, the Commercial Docks, Camberwell, Lambeth, and Pimlico; and it may be succeeded by a zone of town one mile broad, containing Kensington, Bayswater, Paddington, Kentish Town, Clapton, Lime House, Deptford, Clapham, and Chelsea; and thus the metropolis may be extended in alternate mile zones of buildings, with half mile zones of country or gardens, till one of the zones touched the sea." Gardeners' Magazine, 1829

See also: Gardenvisit.com appreciation of John Claudius Loudon.