2008-03-01T22:02:00.000-08:00

Stourhead Garden ....

One of the finest landscape gardens in the world

... A National Trust Garden near Stourton, Wiltshire , The United Kingdom ....

..... Stourhead garden was created by Henry Hoare II in the 1740s.

See website notes on the garden at the very bottom of this blog site.

.... Stourhead .... the Pantheon
as viewed through the Palladian Bridge ....

The ancient parish church of St Peter’s

The Obelisk

At the end of the Fir Walk, a long grassy walk laid

out on a ridge above the garden, is the Obelisk.

This monument was built in 1839 to replace the

decaying original erected by Henry Hoare II in 1746.

At its base is a memorial tablet dedicated to Henry,

added by Richard Colt Hoare in 1815.

The circular Temple of Apollo
sits high on a hill at the western end of the garden.
It was inspired by the temple of Baalbec in Syria
and built in 1765 by the architect Henry Flitcroft.

The Gothic Cottage

This quaint rustic building was first mentioned

as the Watch Cottage in 1785, but is likely to have been built much earlier.

Stourhead Garden ....

One of the finest landscape gardens in the world

Harriet and Ken Aitken from Australia visited this garden when we holidaying in England in May 2003. Some of these photos are my personal photos and some are from the National Trust website at:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-stourhead/w-stourhead-garden.htm

We had British Heritage Pass which meant we could walk into any old building or garden free of cost. It would otherwise cost may $$ to walk into each site.

Stourhead Garden is one of my favourite landscaped gardens. It was designed and laid out by Henry Hoare II from 1741 to 1780, based on inspirations he gathered during travelling through Europe and particularly Italy in the 1730s. Several temples based on classical examples are scattered around the central lake.

The website photos were taken in early June 2001, you can see the rhododendrons flower in several of them. These are actually a later addition to the garden by later generations of the Hoare family. Especially Sir Richard Colt Hoare introduced exotic trees and shrubs.

Stourhead was the perfect realization of the eighteenth-century yearning for a Vergilian and Claudian Arcady. The Stourhead park was created in a luxuriant valley, which Flitcroft made into a lake with a path around it that provided a sequence of Picturesque views and encounters with temples, statuary, springs and grotto, all involving layers of visual, literary, and even personal allusion. One of the principal Picturesque views at Stourhead is known to reflect Claude Lorrain's Coast View of Delos with Aeneas and the passage from Vergil on which it was based, relating Aeneas's account of his experience in the Temple of Apollo at Delos...The architectural set-pieces, each in a Picturesque location, include a Temple of Apollo, a Temple of Flora, a Pantheon (from the Claude painting), and a Palladian bridge.

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A short stroll from Stourhead House, lying in secluded privacy in the adjacent valley, is one of the finest landscape gardens in the world, quite often referred to as ‘Paradise’.

Stourhead garden was created by Henry Hoare II in the 1740s. The River Stour was dammed to form a great lake. Around the lake Hoare laid out a landscape garden to entrance his guests with stunning views and pacify them with serene walking pleasure.

As the garden developed, he added classical features, such as the Temple of Flora, the Pantheon, the Temple of Apollo and Gothic ruins to enhance the series of splendid and unexpected vistas.

Such was the accomplishment of this wondrous garden that Henry Hoare II became known as 'Henry the Magnificent'.

Hoare’s successors cherished his brilliant original conception, while enriching it with new planting. Today, Stourhead is essentially the same as Henry II’s vision – a self-contained and timeless masterpiece.

English landscape movement

Stourhead was at the forefront of the 18th-century English landscape movement.

Earlier in that century, British garden designers were still following the French model of straight vistas and manicured flowerbeds.

The fashion to mirror the stifling formality of the French court in its gardens soon lost appeal, and design turned instead to gardens that celebrated the beauty of nature.

Many of the ideas for this landscape movement were generated by men enticed by the scenes of the Grand Tour of Europe. Henry Hoare II, inspired by the views of Italy captured by artists in paint, decided to create a landscape garden at Stourhead that would bring art to life.

Ever-changing vistas

Stourhead garden changes with the light levels and position of the sun. The Pantheon may catch your eye one minute; then as the sun emerges from behind a cloud, the tulip tree on the island is bathed in light, followed by the Temple of Apollo.

The view from the Pantheon looks back toward the Temple of Flora, the Palladian bridge and the ancient parish church of St Peter’s, set remarkably against a panoramic bank of exotic trees.

The cavalcade of breathtaking vistas from around the garden surprise, inspire and enamour you, in a way that would make Henry Hoare II a proud man. For his garden has matured, and grown into the living work of art he sought to create nearly three centuries ago.

Caring for the garden

The garden team consists of the Head Gardener, Assistant Head Gardener and four full-time gardeners, aided by two National Trust trainees, a college placement and many volunteers.

Their aim is to present this natural paradise at its best to the 350,000 annual visitors, whilst also caring for the walled gardens and greenhouses near Stourhead House. Their challenge is to balance the needs of visitors with those of conservation.

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Garden highlights

We take you on a tour of the garden that follows the original route intended by its founder Henry Hoare II.

We start from the Walled Garden, near to the house, and descend into the valley, working our way through trees brought here by intrepid explorers.

We stop at each of the famous vistas that make Stourhead garden such a wonderful living work of art.

Walled Garden

The old Walled Garden is home to the Pelargonium House. It was erected in 1998 to re-establish the pelargonium collection formed by Richard Colt Hoare in the 19th century. Today we have over 60 varieties.

The old Walled Garden once supplied fruit and vegetables to the kitchens of Stourhead House. Vegetables and flowers are still grown here today, and can be purchased at Stourhead Farm Shop.

The House Lawn

The House Lawn is its own tranquil garden. It is bordered by many species of rhododendron and flanked by different species of oak on one side, and giant redwood trees from America on the other.

Walking away from the House towards the garden you are confronted with an unparalleled view of St Peter’s church in the valley below.

Walk

At the end of the Fir Walk, a long grassy walk laid out on a ridge above the garden, is the Obelisk.

This monument was built in 1839 to replace the decaying original erected by Henry Hoare II in 1746. At its base is a memorial tablet dedicated to Henry, added by Richard Colt Hoare in 1815.

The view to the Temple of Apollo from the Shades

The Shades provides a magical route along leafy paths down towards the lake from the House Lawn.

The many mature trees here give the impression of walking along a forest floor, as the ground is carpeted in green with ancient laurel shrubs.

The Shades also offers a first view of, surrounded the Temple of Apollo by trees from around the world including China, Japan and the Americas.

Six Wells Bottom Valley

Crossing the dam at the eastern end of the lake, you can look into an open pastoral valley, known as Six Wells Bottom.

Down this valley flow the streams that feed the lake. On either side are wooded slopes known as Sunny and Shady Hangings. Before the garden was constructed, the valley formed part of an enclosed deer-park.

View from the Grotto

On the other side of the lake, the garden path descends into the Grotto, a circular domed chamber, built from volcanic rock brought over from Italy.

For the Romans, grottoes were shrines to the gods and the home of water nymphs. Following this tradition, two statues reside inside the Grotto: the sleeping 'Nymph of the Grot' and a classical river god.

You can peer through the Grotto's window back out toward the north shore of the lake, to the Temple of Flora.

The Gothic Cottage

This quaint rustic building was first mentioned as the Watch Cottage in 1785, but is likely to have been built much earlier.

In 1806, Richard Colt Hoare added the Gothic seat and porch, hence its name the ‘Gothic Cottage’.

Here, a clearing opens to offer stunning views across the lake, and a sudden close-up view of the Pantheon.

View from the Pantheon to the Palladian Bridge

From the Pantheon you can look out across the lake to the Temple of Flora and the Palladian Bridge.

The bridge was built to create the illusion that the lake is a river, flowing from the village of Stourton down into the valley.

Turner’s Paddock Lake

From the dam on the western shore of the lake another stretch of water is visible far below.

Although natural in appearance, this lake in Turner’s Paddock was artificially created by the dam, built in 1754.

The cascade was added in 1766 as a decorative way of carrying surplus water down from the main lake. It was designed by Copplestone Warre Bampfylde, who had a similar one at his home in Hestercombe.

View from the Temple of Apollo

The circular Temple of Apollo sits high on a hill at the western end of the garden. It was inspired by the temple of Baalbec in Syria and built in 1765 by the architect Henry Flitcroft.

The temple can be reached from either the twisting Rock Arch bridge, built from Italian volcanic lava, or from the dark, concealed Rockwork passageway.

From the temple, the view of the garden panorama below is majestic.

View to the Pantheon from the Bristol Cross

We end with the classic view out over the lake toward the Pantheon, with the Palladian Bridge in the foreground.

The Pantheon is the largest and most important garden building at Stourhead. Built in 1753-4 by Flitcroft, it was directly inspired by the great Pantheon in Rome.

The interior of the Pantheon contains marble statues of classical deities including the celebrated Hercules by Rysbrack.

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