Over the decades many gardens have lost a lot of their past glory. Perhaps with some attention and efforts, this can be changed.
Please join us in sharing your impressions of the various historic gardens that we will visit, from early prints to recent images from high above.
Are you aware of any “historic” gardens that are past their former glory or even completely lost? Of course the Lost Gardens of Heligan are a wonderful example. Are there others?
Here is a “difficult” example of what we have in mind. Can you identify the underlying garden that has obviously been obliterated by development over the past 300 years!! The print shown below the recent image from Google Earth appears to locate structures but it is almost impossible to identify any significant landmarks.
There is a curious little discrepancy here. Looking closely at the modern imagery you will see that the tower is on the west end of the church, as is described in the related literature. However, note that the tower in the above print is on the east end.
So, if one had time and a shovel (and owner’s permission!!) there might be something to be found in the way of historic remnants and possible restoration of this 300 year old garden design. Where would you start?
In keeping with the general intent of this project, has anybody here visited the Church of St. Giles southwest of Coberly? Pictures? Here is a view using Google Street View looking north from the property. Which hill is might have beendepicted by the 16th century artist, Kip? It becomes increasingly obvious that many of the historical renderings owed a lot to the imagination of the artists and their clients!
While it is possible that these rolling hills directly to the north of the site may have been accurately rendered in Google Street View, it is more likely that the original etching was not particularly accurate.
Here is another example that many of us may have visited, Claremont House.ate in detail in deference to the plans of the owners at the time.
With here a recent image from Google Earth (TM) :
The above (two) examples are, of course, in England where there is a lot to work with, but in browsing through old literature I have come across many examples that illustrate a similar process in the demise of historic gardens.
In America, the remains of Villa Turicum are on private property on the shore of Lake Michigan. These links will give you some idea of the current condition of this formerly grand property during Chicago’s heyday in the late 19th century.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/villa-turicum and http://villaturicum.com/
As originally designed by Charles Platt ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Platt), he and Ellen Biddle Shipman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Biddle_Shipman) were responsible for many gardens in the US during the early 20th century.
Here is Villa Turicum as currently viewed on Google Earth. Several features, including those described in the above links can be identified. It is particularly intriguing to note the circular feature in the lower left of the design that appears still visible in the upper right of the Google Earth image with even the appearance of details of an associated “parterre”.
As will be true with most of the properties we try to graphically resurrect here, there are ownership and privacy issues to be considered. This may be particularly true with Villa Turicum. My hope is that there will be some cases in which a previously “lost” garden may be discovered for which the owners will welcome an opportunity to bring attention to the possibility of restoration.
In Italy a city park
was once a grand garden
And back in England, here is an interesting one, Moor Park House, now known as Waverly Abbey House
It is not easy to compare features with the present but it looks like the Waverley Abbey ruins were depicted by the artist (Kip I believe) in the upper left corner of the “park” above and as shown below.
Nothing is recognizable in the way of later structures, but the general trace of the Wey is similar, etc. Is this the original “serpentine” feature European gardens?
More in keeping with “our ” goal, are there any remaining artifacts of the original gardens about Moor Park ? The “serpentine” feature in the lower left of Kip’s etching may have been one of the first of its kind !
Also?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moor_Park,_Farnham
There is a lot more to Moor Park and it’s serpentine feature than meets the eye. The best historical reference I have found is a very interesting one by Kuitert Wybe in 2015 that can be found at:
In the above article, the authors suggest that the serpentine feature may be the earliest known attempt at English “landscape” gardening. Wow!
historicgardensnow 