Review of the London Town Garden 1700-1840, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan David Cast Bryn Mawr College, Dcast@Brynmawr.Edu

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2002 Review of The London Town Garden 1700-1840, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan David Cast Bryn Mawr College, [email protected]

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Custom Citation Cast, David. Review of The London Town Garden 1700-1840, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 61 (2002): 104-106, doi: 10.2307/991822.

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For more information, please contact [email protected]. in this journal, March 1995), where the self. I also have some doubtsabout the spaces. And it was these that Longstaffe- many activities and people involved in quotes from Antoine-JosephDezallier Gowan first saw of London, when, as a the process of feeding the king and his d'Argenville(La theorie etpratique dujar- young boy arriving from Panama to court came into focus. Bouchenot- dinage, 1709) used as if spoken by travel by train to Edinburgh, he looked Dechin notes that at that time there Dupuis, who left no writings (even out at the backs of the houses with their were no comparable publications on the though the source of the quotationsis innumerable gardens, some shabby and histories of the people who served as carefullyindicated in the footnotes). unkempt, others meticulously tended gardeners to the kings or of their careers Finally,the seriousresearch at the with velvety lawns, pert sundials, and and their families despite the mass of basis of this book should have been enameled flower beds. This is domestic- material available in the archives. Thus, extended in one more direction. No ity; think here of John Boorman's film this book (and the projected series) drawingby Dupuis is reproduced,and Hope and Glory(1986), where the open- offers a new, important perspective on a thus an importantaspect of his creative ing sequence, showing a world disrupted much studied subject. life is missing.An attemptto find some by war, rakes down a line of suburban Although the author includes the of the drawings made for Tessin in gardens as "heads move back and forth results of much new research, it must be Stockholmwould have been worthwhile. above the fences that divide the narrow noted that this is a book written primar- And,while the bibliographyis obviously strips of land, moving to the sound of ily for nonspecialist readers with an intended for a French-speakingpublic unseen lawn mowers."' Yet for all their interest in Versailles. The charming (only items written in French are interest, these gardens are curiously illustrations from contemporary draw- included),it is not clearthat the author absent in any accounts of the city. ings, paintings, and prints (used more has fully exploitedthe manyimportant Although more had been done in the often than not to decorate the pages as writingsabout Versailles in Germanand Netherlands, it is only recently, since the well as to supply information) have English. 1980s, that British scholars have paid resulted in an unusually attractive vol- Despite my reservations,this is a attention to the small town garden and ume. Yet specialistsin garden history will strong beginningfor a series of studies to what Longstaffe-Gowan calls town- also find their rewards. Bouchenot- thatshould move well beyondtraditional gardening within the urban culture of Dechin gives a good picture of the devel- limits.Moreover, it seemsthat the explo- London in the eighteenth and nineteenth opment and the evolution of the ration of such nontraditionalareas of centuries. The work of Erik de Jong and Versailles gardens in the decades researchwill play a major role in the Marleen Domenicus-van Soest, and that 1660-1700, and there is much interest- programof the new internationalstudy of Elizabeth McKeller, Mark Laird, ing detail about gardening, a good deal centerdue to be establishedat Versailles Andrea Fredericksen, and Ivan Hall are of which is not widely known. I was in the next few years. The field awaits important precedents. Yet Longstaffe- especially taken by a description of the both the publicationsand the studycen- Gowan, who is both a landscapearchitect annual harvest of orange blossoms at the ter with anticipation. and a historian of landscape architecture, Versailles Orangerie, picked primarilyto GUY WALTON brings in an additional perspective. And determine the eventual ornamental dis- NewYork University the present volume, which appeared at tribution of the fruits, but then used in a the same time as an exhibition on this number of ways including the making of theme at the Museum of London (to liqueurs. At times, the book goes too far ToddLongstaffe-Gowan which the author acted as consultant), is in its attempt to be entertaining, such as The London Town Garden the product of his two professions and in the lengthy chapter on Marly-le-Roy, 1700-1840 finds its origin in those earlieryears when the presented by author as a threat to New Haven and London:Yale University he peered from the train into those many those working at Versailles. This may Press, published for the Paul Mellon Centre private sanctuaries.2 have been the but case, surely a descrip- for Studies in BritishArt, 2001, xiii + 296 pp., The story begins very clearly with tion of the way of life at Marly was not 200 b/w illus., 60 color illus. $60.00, ISBN 0- the rebuilding of London after the fire necessary in a life of Dupuis. The strat- 300-08538-9. of 1666. The hero was the Dutchman of egy using contemporary quotes, as Nicholas Barbon, that early capitalist so from Mme de Sevigne, is appropriate, Londonhas its parks,its commons,sev- praised by Marx. From the 1670s to the but the use of frequent the duc de Saint- eralheaths, its squares,its fields,its hills, 1690s, as part of his program of specula- Simon-a biased very observer who dis- its flats, even its downs and marshesat tive building, he divided the ground into liked the Versailles gardens-raises Hackney,Leyton, Plumstead, and Erith. regular streets in order to increase the questions of accuracy, and I was sur- Yet it has also small privategardens- number of houses that could be built, to see a prised quote from Nicodemus towngardens, as Longstaffe-Gowancalls with as little frontage as possible. The Tessin about Mansart's Colonnade put them-which in acreageoccupy far more City had no such spaces. And if there into the mouth of Henry Dupuis him- of London than the celebratedpublic were a few open areas at Lincoln's Inn,

104 JSAH / 61:1, MARCH 2002 or Gordon Fields, or the large so-called Garden Grounds, set roughly where London Western Dock is now, these were nothing in space or usefulness to compare with the gardens-close gardens, specks of garden, little walled gardens in streets-that grew up behind these new terraced houses and in some of the new squares. To accompany them came a book by Thomas Fairbanks, The City Gardner, published first in 1722, republished in 1760 under the title The LondonGardner. Both editions demon- strated what was being done to city gardens. They describe the growth of the London nursery trade, the redoing of several central gardens in the city squares, and, most importantly, the effect of the building of thousands of houses in Mayfair, Marylebone, Covent Garden, and Piccadilly, whose gardens needed attention. These books were aimed at the amateur gardeners, culti- vating this innocent pleasure, in order, as Fairchild put it, to improve their tal- ent, to ensure their quiet of mind, and T. H. Shepherd, WilliamUpcott's back garden at 102 Upper Street in c. 1835, with "to be fix'd in a right Notion of Country the spire of Saint Mary,Islington, in the distance, watercolor Happiness, when their Affairs will per- mit them to reach such Pleasures" (18). For Fairchild, the metropolis had three distinct areas, marked by their monly to fail: lilacs in gardensquares, was the publication in 1838 of John proximity to the River Thames, the den- lindens, Virginia creeper, fruit trees, Claudius Loudon's The Suburban Gar- sity of their development, and, for him pears, mulberry,even fig trees as in dener,which despite its title was as much most significantly,the quality of their air. Bridewell(there is still a BridewellPlace concerned with small gardens as their The healthiest part was near the in betweenFleet Streetand New Bridge larger cousins in the ever developing Thames, especially west from the Tem- Street)and Roll'sGarden in Chancery suburbs. Yet attitudes were changing. If ple to the Palace of Westminster; others Lane,where they had "ripen'd very well" in 1739 we can find a contributor to the were "the more inland Parts of the (19).There werealso many plants flour- journal CommonSense laughing at what Town" (19) and then the spacious resi- ishingon balconies,and these also could he called the scanty and abortive dential estates of the West End. The demonstratewhat was for Fairchildthe attempts "of little Things to equal great suggestions he made came from practical particularachievement of city garden- Ones" (9)-that is, the small city garden experience. Near London he had raised ing, that is to say, the triumph over pretending to be more-in 1839 in several thousands plants, "both from adversityand, whatever the artificiality, Dickens there is a more cutting descrip- foreign countries and of the English a representationof skill,vigilant applica- tion of these gardens, "in which there Growth" (19), and he knew well what tion, andcultural sophistication. And, of withers on from year to year a crippled would flourish. Some plants that would course,there were now suppliersin and tree . . . letting some sorry rheumatic not thrive in squares in the middle of near London for all that gardeners sparrow to chirrup in its branches"(9). town did well in the garden of the earl needed.For example,such was Arabella As the history unfolds, the story of Halifax near Parliament;others flour- Thomas near the Strand,who-as the becomes more complicated, and perhaps ished at the Temple, the gardens there advertisementnoted-sold "allsorts of the account Longstaffe-Gowan gives at displaying great variety and what he Garden Seeds . . . also shears, rakes, the end of his book cannot be as clear as called "a good Number of Exotic Plants" reels, hoes, spades,scythes . . . and all that at the beginning. But with such fig- (19). But Fairchild encouraged readers sortsof materialsfor gardening."3 ures as Humphrey Repton and Loudon to try plants where they were held com- The next moment in this history andJohn Nash and even Decimus Burton

BOOKS 105 in playnow, there was much more to say Soane's House, or of men at Fitzroy Cities and do aboutthe gardenand the house. Square, drawing a roller across the lawn; This was especiallytrue in the contrast or it talks of unusual topics-the devel- Loudon noted between the old-fash- opment of the jobbing gardener,or those KarenBowie, editor ioned,expensive, and fussy conceits of the stucco ornaments called eyecatchers set La modernite avant Haussmann: avowedart found in citygardens and that against the walls of neighboring houses, Formes de I'espace urbain a Paris found in suburbangardens, where the and there are one or two of these remain- 1801-1853 familywould escape the urbansqualor to ing in London. All this serves to bring Paris: Editions Recherches, 2001, 408 pp., cultivatesocial harmony and sentimental out from the past the particularitiesof life 95 b/w illus. ?92 (paper),ISBN 2-86222- domesticityin whathe called"compara- that are so much those of our domestic 036-1. tivelyunlimited space" (248). The model lives now-buying and caring for plants, imaginednow might be that of Nash at looking even in the densest of cities at The claim that Baron Georges-Eugene Regent'sPark, where the sublimeand the gardens and thinking as the seasons pass Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine from beautifulwould play againsteach other, about what is growing, what is dying. 1853 to 1870, deserves the lion's share of the terracesthere magnificentand sub- Grand buildings are fine and every city credit for transforming Paris into the lime,the smallerPark Villages suggesting needs them, well designed and well built. nineteenth century's capital of moder- elementswithin the sublimethat in their But cities are spaces, small and large, and nity has been accepted as nearly incon- unpretentiousdomesticity were closer to it is fascinating to think how our sense of trovertible fact ever since the publication themerely beautiful. This, in the 1840s,is space is grounded in what we had around of his Memoires in 1890-1893 (see the wherethe storyends. The lastimage we us, in our houses or apartments. I grew new edition by Francoise Choay [Paris, aregiven is thatof WilliamBlake and his up in a terraced house in South London, 2000]). Confirming opinions already belovedwife, Catherine,sitting naked in with a small garden at the front, a larger voiced at mid-century via newspapers the summerhouse of theirtown garden one at the back. But I will never forget and the specialized press, Haussmann in Lambeth,"freed" as Thomas Butts, my bliss in what seemed an infinite space attributed the modernization of Paris who sawthis, put it, "fromthose trouble- when I visited my cousins who lived in a during the Second Empire to his plan somedisguises which have prevailed since more expansive house in Kew, where the for the city, which itself originated in a the Fall."This wasthe smallgarden as a gardenwent around the house from front sketch that Napoleon III had put into his kind of fantasy,for the Blakeshad been to side to back so that you could scamper hands in 1853. The resulting Paris of readingpassages from ParadiseLost in all over without having to wipe your tree-lined boulevards and regular lime- character."Come in," William cried out, shoes. Committed to urban life, I also stone facades, supported by efficient sys- "it's only Adam and Eve, you know" believe in the compactness of the city tems of spatial and hygienic circulation, (252). We can only wonder what the garden; but still, I cannot suppress my proved the prefect'smastery of the polit- neighbors,if they couldsee them,would sense of the luxury and delight of the ical and economic forces produced in havethought. more generous, if perhaps wasteful, sub- this age of industry, as he wielded the This is all fascinating.And if whatI urban gardens. twinned instruments of a disciplined havewritten here is morea reportthan a DAVID CAST municipal bureaucracy and a boldly review,this is in partbecause what espe- BrynMawr College speculative scheme of capitalist financ- ciallystruck me is the range,depth, and ing in order to turn the imperial sketch culturalinterest of the detailsLongstaffe- Notes into the physical and social order of an Gowanhas been able to bringtogether 1.JohnBoorman, Hope and Glory (London, 1987), 33. urban master plan. Under Haussmann's here.There is archaeology,most notably 2. This exhibition,organized by R. Atkins, T administration, the critical idea of Longstaffe-Gowan,and D. Pearsonand on viewat the the report of excavations done at modernity and the critical of Museumof Londonfrom 17 to 30 practice ChathamDockyards, the best-preserved February April urbanism seemed at once to have been 2001, wasinteresting also in havinga certainpolit- remainsof invented and early-eighteenth-centurygar- icalagenda, namely the coordinated in a theory of dens in There are also certain (paraphrasing pressrelease), England. that the idea of such town gardensis contradicted the industrialcity that could be subjected sourcesto be printed used, estatebooks by recentarguments in favorof high-densityhous- to rational analysis and control. Artifact from London and beyond,those of the ing on what are calledbrownfield sites. This last of modernity, Haussmann'sParis became Crown less familiar on the otherside of the Estatesor of the dukeof Bedford term, perhaps the measure for all other modern cities, at Woburnor of the Grosvenors. Atlantic,refers to previouslydeveloped land, now in And and the twentieth century's point of ruinbut, in the wordsof one advocate,"of then there are the many images of the impor- for writers like tanceto as naturehas reclaimed departure Walter Ben- gardensin prints, and bio-diversity, many drawings, paint- sites in the heartsof our townsand cities (and jamin and architects like Le Corbusier, of which are they ings, many nicely repro- oftensupport both skylarks and linnets)." who saw in the city a transformative duced here. This shows us history 3. LizaPicard, Dr. Johnson's London (London, 2000), promise for the future through progres- unfamiliarviews of Sir 243. things-of John sive ideological and formal change.

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