Richmond Gardens and 'Capability' Brown

In 1760, George II died and George III became King. As was usual with the landed classes, the passing of the generations was marked by changes to the inherited buildings and landscapes.

In 1764 Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was appointed George III's Surveyor to his Majesty's Gardens and Waters at Hampton Court. Following this appointment, George III commissioned Brown to transform his late grandmother's Richmond Gardens.

'Capability' Brown is recognised as one of the leading exponents of the English Landscape Movement. In a letter written in 1775, Brown said, "Placemaking, and a good English Garden depend entirely on principle and have very little to do with fashion". He made great use of the three-dimensional curve called "The Line of Grace". The sweep of a lake's edge was never exactly parallel to a planting of trees or curve of a drive. Approach roads did not follow rigid directions, but rose and fell naturally over existing contours. His vision allowed him to bring out the full potential of a place - its 'capability' - correcting faults and improving its beauty.

However, he was anything but a disciple of his predecessors and so rapidly set about radically altering the designs and removing most of the follies Bridgeman and Kent had installed at Richmond. His own style of broad sweeping open vistas and informal plantings gradually replaced Bridgeman's carefully contrived garden with its variety, contrasts and associated features.

Brown's grand scheme for Richmond included visually uniting the Gardens with Syon Park across the Thames, which he had already landscaped. This visual unification of lands on either side of the Thames was not a new feature of the Richmond landscape as, at the turn of the 16th century, Henry VII had extended his hunting grounds into lands on the other side of the Thames.

The 1764 plan attributed to Brown shows the Richmond landscape as a whole. The dramatically altered design bears precious little resemblance to the gardens that existed then. Virtually nothing is known about his discussion process with King George, nor how he carried out the designs that were eventually agreed. What is clear, though, is that his initial vision of vast areas of open parkland, bordered and punctuated by slim sinuous strips of woodland, and curvaceous clumps broken by delicate groves, was not entirely implemented. Instead, the design that emerges on Burrell and Richardson's 1771 map is far more solid, restrained by pre-existing woodland and retaining many existing features.

Brown retained Bridgeman's Hermitage and the Grass Plot, and Bridgeman's landscape influenced Brown in other subtle ways. Instead of clearing away and starting again, Brown took The Wood, the mature woodland that pre-existed Bridgeman, together with Keeper's Close and other early Bridgeman plantings, and turned them to his advantage. He completely redesigned the wilderness walks, removing all offending symmetrical lines, replacing them with more serpentine paths. At the edges of the woodland, he combined the judicious removal of trees with carefully sited replanting to create the characteristic curving edges that can be seen on the 1771 map. In this way he kept the mature woodland to lend age and maturity to his designs.

Brown also planted a new strip of woodland adjacent to the Keeper's Close to connect it with the Diagonal Wilderness, which lost its formal paths. He discarded most of the classic Bridgeman features of the Amphitheatre and the Great Oval, except for the southernmost portion of the Amphitheatre which was retained to finish his design. An area of woodland at the northwest corner of the Great Oval became a section of his large circle of woodland beside the Hollow Walk, which he excavated by the side of the Thames.

The trees removed had been Bridgeman's most recent plantings, so were the youngest of all the Gardens' trees. It is highly likely that they would have transplanted elsewhere within the Gardens, rather than being discarded. However, there would not have been enough to satisfy Brown's plans, so some new trees would have been brought in.

The removal of the Amphitheatre and the most of the Great Oval, together with the planting of the Hollow Walk woodland, are important aspects of Brown's work at Richmond Gardens. The creation of the open space at the centre of the Gardens is one of the more enduring aspects of his design, and it later enabled the 19th century building of the Lake and Syon Vista.

Although the loss of Bridgeman's River Terrace was widely decried, Brown's new path with its ha-ha actually maintained Bridgeman's innovation of visual riverside access. Both men made the Thames central to their designs to allow appreciation of the river and its changing moods. It is the blurring of sharply defined boundaries and the incorporation of the wider landscape that unite the designs of Bridgeman and Brown in the philosophy of the English Landscape Garden.

The now classic open parkland created by Brown divided contemporary public opinion. The 'waving lawns' he put in place of the more formal River Terrace were decried by some. The Middlesex Journal in 1774 cried, "nor is there a person who can recollect the beauty of the lengthened terrace, but censures the innovator – Mr Capability Brown". Others, such as one Arthur Young in 1771, praised them as "[hanging] to the river in a most beautiful manner".

Richmond Lodge was demolished in 1772 and the royal family moved to the Kew White House, recently vacated on the death of Princess Augusta. However, Brown continued to work on Richmond Gardens and a c.1794 plan of the Gardens shows two sections landscaped in Brown's style: the area north of Queen Caroline's Cottage, and the southern area between the Observatory and the Thames. As Brown died in 1783, it is safe to assume that a third planned section, surrounding the old Richmond Lodge, never received Brown's attentions.

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