Wotton House - History of The Grounds

History of The Grounds

In 1726 Richard Grenville inherited from his father the Wotton estate, which yielded a rental income of over £3000 per annum. In 1735 he introduced an Enclosure Act in Parliament which cleared the area of dwellings, enabling the transformation during the 1750s of the London & Wise garden into the new style of natural landscape.

In 1754 another Hester, sister of Richard and George, married William Pitt at Wotton and soon took over the project that Richard had envisioned. By that date Richard had taken over at Stowe and George was living at Wotton. Lancelot "Capability" Brown had left Stowe in 1749 where he had been working as head gardener and was brought in to help Pitt execute the project, in particular the extensive water works. It is not known exactly what the relative roles and contributions of Pitt and Brown were, although Pitt was a well-known landscape designer in his own right.

The Pleasure Grounds cover 200 acres and incorporate two lakes, one of 35 acres and one of 12, joined by a canal. They are enclosed within a circular belt, as was common at the time, and the visitor encounters a series of temples, bridges and statues along the circuit.

In April 1786 John Adams (the future second President of the United States on tour with Thomas Jefferson - who would serve as his vice president before becoming President himself) spent a few days visiting some stately homes to the north west of London, and one of those they visited was Wotton. On their return to London Adams wrote "Stowe, Hagley, and Blenheim, are superb; Woburn, Caversham, and the Leasowes are beautiful. Wotton is both great and elegant, though neglected". Jefferson noted in his diary: "But two gardeners. Much neglected."

All the grounds were sold by Major Beaumont in 1947 and had subsequently been bought by neighbouring farmers in parcels. Between 1957 and 1985 Elaine Brunner gradually bought back some 400 acres of the grounds. Since 1998 David Gladstone has overseen the restoration of much of the original scheme by his estate manager, Michael Harrison.