“Describe the design of Stourhead Garden and explain its origins in the Picturesque and the English Landscape Movement.”
During the 18th century, Britain came to a point in its history where there was a need to move past the Catholic-backed Baroque movement across Europe. Architects of the time, such as Lord Burlington, William Kent and Colen Campbell, sought to refine their buildings with the principles seen in Ancient Greek and Roman architecture. Hence, they looked heavily upon the work of Andrea Palladio in his interpretation of the Classical in the 1500s and thus the Neo- Palladian movement progressed. With this movement, came the genesis of the Picturesque movement. The gardens at Colen Campbell’s Stourhead House in Wiltshire, England are a gem to the 18th century as they show this move into Picturesque. Here was a move from the landscape architecture in Europe, namely France, where straight lines and nature was sculpted to create a certain aesthetic, perhaps not suited to Britain. The movement was an abstraction of well-known landscape paintings from the likes of Claude Lorrain, Savator Rosa and the Nicolas Poussin. Henry Houre II at Stourhead, sought to produce an aesthetic of gardens where architecture was used to highlight nature. Starting around 1740, Hoare began to place buildings across his landscape, to accentuate the garden’s beauty in the manner of the Picturesque movement.
The house at Stourhead was commissioned by Henry Hoare I and completed by Colen Campbell in 1725 after Hoare I’s death. Hoare’s elder son, Henry Hoare II, then inherited the house and gardens in 1741. Hoare was then presented with a blank canvas to do as he pleased with and evidently saw the value in focusing all of his efforts on making Stourhead Gardens a distinctive and unique place as he said:
‘What is there (at Stourhead) in creation… those are the fruits of industry and application to business and shows what great things may be done by it, the envy of the indolent who have no claim to Temples, Grottos, Bridges, Rocks, Exotick Pines and Ice in summer…’
Henry Hoare II
It is known Hoare was familiar with literature leading to these Picturesque ideals, especially by Alexander Pope, as well as having travelled Italy and admiring the works of Claude Lorrain (even having his paintings reproduced for Stourhead). Hoare therefore sought to create an ambitious garden, especially when he became absorbed in the gardens after the death of his wife, Susan, in 1743. Up until his death in 1785, Hoare spent his time removing the few existing formal gardens and making use of the blank canvas in the natural landscape he had to work with. Hoare was constantly at work landscaping, but his temple scene around the lake was not created at least until after 1744.

Temple of Clitumnus, Umbria Temple of Ceres (Flora)
The first of these buildings to be created in the landscape around the lake was the Temple of Ceres (Flora) in 1744. Here, Henry Flitcroft - an apprentice of Lord Burlington - was assigned to help Henry Hoare create what he had envisaged. Similar to Pagan traditions of gratitude for fresh water, Hoare wanted to celebrate the source of the water to his lake. It is evident that for this Hoare and Flitcroft have taken inspiration from the Temple of Clitumnus to the River God in Umbria. However, at Stourhead the Roman Goddess of flowers and spring was honoured in the temple. This suggests a move towards the Romantic which led on from Picturesque in the 19th century. With its doric order and temple façade, Temple of Ceres is evidently classical. However, due to its context of beautiful landscaping and foliage, we can see this as part of a scene created as opposed to a piece of isolated architecture.
‘All gardening is landscape painting - just like a landscape hung up…. You may distance things by darkening them and by narrowing the plantation more and more toward the end, in the same manner as they do in painting…’
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
This way of nature protruding into the shapes and geometry of Classical architecture is a key part in the development of the Picturesque. This realisation of the potential of nature to create such beauty with architecture saw this progress to the English Landscape Movement.
Aeneas at Delos The Pantheon (Temple of Hercules)
Hoare’s next work was a very obvious recreation of a distinctive Classical Roman building he named the Pantheon (originally the Temple of Hercules). In contrast to the Temple of Ceres, positioned with the water source, the Pantheon was created and positioned purely to look like an idyllic landscape of the Picturesque paintings. Here, we can see Hoare’s attention to the work of Claude Lorrain as he depicts the Pantheon among landscapes and flora in many of his paintings. In Aeneas at Delos we can see Claude has depicted the same Tuscan Doric portico front as on Hoare’s Pantheon. With these two buildings complete, Hoare could now have achieved a part of his dream landscape. He could now look across to the Pantheon enclosed by trees and foliage. As often seen in the Picturesque, Hoare had his own interpretation of the Pantheon in Rome and included statues of Hercules, later of Flora and other plaster casts personal to Henry Hoare. In a similar fashion, Hoare created his Temple of Apollo in 1757 inspired by a Temple at Baalbeck. Once complete, Apollo finished the range of Classical structures Hoare had placed. The fact that these buildings were encompassed into a whole landscape and personalised so, present them as something more concerned with aesthetics and submissive to the proportions and form so strictly followed by previous formal gardens.

Panoramic of The Grotto at Stourhead
The Grotto in 1748 did however show that the Picturesque movement was not solely based on scenes of pristine Classical architecture and well planned plant life. Hoare created a domed chamber beneath where the principles of Picturesque also being about the move from regulated, linear forms and a move to more rough creations. A very tactile space is created with a brick wall clad with Italian tuffa to encompass the visitor. Here is an attempt to not just have a building which compliments nature but where it is being created and constructed to suit humans. Alcoves were made in this false cave for a statue of the river god and water nymph. An idyllic view is framed the tuffa across the lake to the Temple of Flora, enhanced by the cross plan of the cave, allowing one to capture this view from full length.
Stone Bridge after Palladio
Created then was one of the most iconic pictures of Stourhead with the creation of a near direct replica in Hoare’s Stone Bridge after Palladio.
‘The Bridge is now about. It is simple & plain. I took it from Palladios Bridge at Vicenza, 5 arches & when you stand at the Pantheon the water will be seen thro the arches & it will look as if the River came thro the Village & that this was the Village Bridge for publick use; the View of the Bridge, Village & Church altogether will be a Charmg Gaspd picture at that end of the water’
Henry Hoare in a letter to his daughter.
HHH
Hoare clearly had a great passion for creating an image with the objects and landscape he created. The key characteristic of Picturesque here is the creation of an assigned view. After his work on the bridge, Hoare brought the addition of many other relics, which saw a move from Palladian to the use of English antiquity with Gothic additions in the 19th century.
One of the main ideals of the Picturesque and the resulting English Landscape Movement, were placement of the viewer in a landscape and planned routes.
Stourhead House and its associated gardens and landscapes in the Wiltshire countryside, show a bold move from the Baroque to the Picturesque movement and to the English Landscape Movement. Having been inspired by tours of Europe and it’s art, nature and architecture were moulded to create a picture of what a beautiful landscape should be. The Stourhead created by Henry Hoare, was one which at the time would have been controversial to many as it moved from a regimented, strict form of gardens and to one which was far more natural looking. He sought to form a garden that is from a much more romantic approach and thinking, purely for aesthetics in creating a scene than abiding by borders in his creations.
Bibliography
WOODBRIDGE, K, 1971, The Stourhead Landscape, London: The National Trust
MOFFET, M., FAZIO, M., and WODEHOUSE, L., 2009, A World History of Architecture, 2nd ed., London: Laurence King Publishing


CURL, J.S, 1999, 2006, Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Clays Ltd, Suffolk
THE NATIONAL TRUST., 2011, Stourhead [online], London: The National Trust, Available from www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stourhead [Accessed 31 October 2012]


Images
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24712609@N00/527696499/sizes/m/in/photostream/
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/richard-wilson-ra-the-temple-of-clitumnus-5159381-details.aspx
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jane_sanders/favorites/?view=lg
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/claude/3/07delos.html
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/60614695

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