Pleasure ground

The pleasure grounds of English country house gardens have typically been remade a number of times, and awareness has recently returned that even the designs of the famous 18th-century landscapists such as Capability Brown originally included large areas of pleasure gardens, which unlike the landscaped parks, have rarely survived without major changes.

Encouraged by the landscape architect, Humphry Repton, this division of the grounds of a country house spread to Germany around 1800 and was employed inter alia by Prince Pückler-Muskau and Peter Joseph Lenné, who made use of it in their designs at Muskau, Glienicke and Babelsberg.

The ornamentation included native and exotic plants that were laid out as flower carpets in various, mostly geometric, shapes and, according to Repton's advice, placed tastefully in the lawn, with round or oval flower baskets hanging mostly near the paths, as well as special individual shrubs and trees, statues, water features, small ponds or garden buildings.

On the other hand, the enclosure was made for pragmatic reasons, in order to keep grazing cattle or wild animals away from the ornamental garden.

Around the outside of the pleasure ground, and sometimes partly through it, a winding system of paths – belt walks – led through an area formed by gentle hillocks with groups of shrubs and trees to various viewing points.