Capability Brown - a pioneer in English landscape design
Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was an 18th-century English landscape architect, who designed over 170 parks - many of which survive. Famous designs include Kew Gardens in West London, Hampton Court Palace in Surrey and Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
Brown was nicknamed 'Capability' because he would advise clients that their land had 'capability' for improvement.
Born in Northumberland in 1716, Brown left school at 16, and worked as head gardener's apprentice at Kirkharle Hall until he was 23. His first landscape commission was for a new lake in the park at Kiddington Hall in Oxfordshire, and in 1741, Brown became undergardener at Stowe, Buckinghamshire. Here, he worked under William Kent - a founder of the new English style of landscape garden.
Whilst working at Stowe, Brown was permitted to take freelance commission work from his employer Lord Cobham's aristocratic friends. This enabled him to establish a reputation as a proficient landscape gardener, and Brown became sought after by landed families because he was a proponent of the new English style. He also was noted as a fast worker - taking only about an hour on horseback to survey an estate, and sketch out an entire design.
In 1764 Brown was appointed King George III's Master Gardener at Hampton Court Palace, residing at the Wilderness House, and in 1767, Brown bought his own estate at Fenstanton in Huntingdonshire.
Brown's reputation declined after his death, partly because the harmony within his designs clashed with the Romantic generation (such as Richard Payne Knight), who favoured a presentation of the power of nature. However, Brown's work has since been restituted, especially during the 20th century - partly because of a positive appraisal in Marie-Luise Gothein's 1913 book History of Garden Art.
A Capability Brown Festival to celebrate the tercentenary of Brown's birth was held in 2016. It involved over 500 events across Britain as part of the celebrations, and the Royal Mail issued a series of Landscape Stamps in Brown's honour in the same year. A commemorative fountain at Westminster Abbey was unveiled in 2018, developed with the assistance of gardener Alan Titchmarsh.
Further reading
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