Chiswick House Gardens
Burlington and Kent experimented with new designs, incorporating such diverse elements as mock fortifications, a Ha-ha, classical fabriques, statues, groves, faux Egyptian objects, bowling greens, winding walks, cascades and water features.
Authors of antiquity, such as Horace and Pliny, were major influences on 18th century thinkers through their descriptions of their own gardens, with alleys shaded by trees, parterres, topiary, and fountains.
A major architect of the gardens at Chiswick was William Kent, whom Lord Burlington had brought back with him on his return from his second Grand Tour in 1719.
Theatrical aspects were added to the gardens by Kent, who studied the theatre and masque designs of Inigo Jones for the Stuart Court,[4] which were owned by Lord Burlington and housed within his villa.
Burlington, Kent and Pope were informed by the writings of Anthony Ashley Cooper who advocated "variety" in a garden, but not complete deformalisation.
Around the base of the pool are three concentric rings of raised grass, conforming originally to a 3:4:5 ratio, echoing the dimensions of the Red and Green Velvet Rooms within the Villa.
[5] However, it was the figures of the poets Horace, Homer and Virgil, the philosopher Socrates, and the leaders Lucius Verus and Lycurgus which once graced the exedra whose political message was one of democracy and anti-tyranny.
Both Deer Houses had pyramidal roofs and characteristic 'Vitruvian' doors; a feature that comes directly from Palladio's woodcuts from his I quattro libri dell'architettura of 1570.
Part of the floor of this building was laid out in imitation of a Roman mosaic which English Heritage archaeologists in 2009 dated to the mid 18th century.
The lawn at the rear of the house was created by 1745 and planted with young Cedar of Lebanon trees which alternate with stone funerary urns designed by William Kent.
The excess soil was then heaped up behind William Kent's cascade to produce an elevated walkway for people to admire the gardens and a view of the nearby River Thames.
A gateway designed by Inigo Jones in 1621 at Beaufort House in Chelsea (home of Sir Hans Sloane) was bought and removed by Lord Burlington and rebuilt in the gardens at Chiswick in 1738.
[12] Unlike Stowe, with its Temple of Worthies and busts such as the Black Prince, Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare, Burlington's gardens at Chiswick did not romance or mythologise England's illustrious past.
[16] Richard Hewlings states that the reason for such actions was not neglect but rather: "it was a change of taste, away from artificial temples located within a geometrically ordered plan".
[16] In 1784 the Duke engaged Samuel Lapidge, a landscape designer who had previously worked under Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, to make further changes to the garden, including the filling in of the northern rectangular pond.
