Bowood House - Gardens

Gardens

Bowood is one of Capability Brown's finest parks. He extended a pond into a large curved lake. Laid out over 2,000 acres (8 km²) in the 1760s, it replaced an earlier, more formal garden of avenues and wildernesses. Brown's design encompasses a sinuous lake (almost 1 km long), with lawns sloping gently down from the house, and drifts of mature trees. Brown planted an arboretum of rare trees in the Pleasure Grounds behind the walled garden, and these were added to in the mid-19th century when a pinetum was begun. It was at about this time that the Doric Temple folly, originally situated by Brown in the Pleasure Grounds, was moved to its present position beside the lake.

In 1766, Lady Shelburne visited the landscape garden created by Charles Hamilton on his estate Painshill Park. Hamilton was then asked to improve on Capability Brown's improvements. Working with Josiah Lane, the same artisan stonemason who had built the new cascade and grotto at Painshill Park, Hamilton added a cascade and grotto to the Bowood landscape.

The great Italianate terrace gardens on the south front of the house were commissioned by the 3rd Marquess. The Upper Terrace, by Sir Robert Smirke, was completed in 1818, and the Lower, by George Kennedy, was added in 1851. Originally planted with hundreds of thousands of annuals in intricate designs, the parterres are now more simply planted.