Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, ‘“New making” the Duke of Beaufort’s garden in Upper Grosvenor Street’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xII, 2002, pp. 149–162
text © the authors 2002 ‘NEW MAKING’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT’S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET
TODD LONGSTAFFE - GOWAN
uch is known about the late seventeenth- nineteen the Duke ‘travelled for his general Mcentury garden of Beaufort House in Chelsea – education’, accompanied by his steward, Dominique the princely pleasance created by Mary, st Duchess of du Four. Whilst in Italy Beaufort acquired a ‘large Beaufort in the early s. Very little, however, has quantity of statues, Busts, and pictures’, and been published on Beaufort House, Mayfair, and commissioned the celebrated ‘Badminton Cabinet’ nothing on its equally extensive gardens which were from the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence – created by the Duchess’s great-grandson between possibly one of the greatest works of decorative art – . ever commissioned by a British patron. He also From the mid seventeenth century the Dukes of appears to have studied architecture – possibly under Beaufort kept ‘a very large House with a Garden his Roman landlord, the antiquary Giovanni towards the River Thames ’ (on the site of the present Francesco Guarnieri. Surviving architectural day Savoy Hotel). The st Duke ‘finding it crazy, and drawings in the Badminton archive suggest that the by its Antiquity grown very ruinous, and altho’ large, Duke was a competent draughtsman. Beaufort was a yet not after the Modern way of Building, thought it patron of the architects James Gibbs, William Kent, better to let out the Ground to Undertakers, than and Francis Smith as well as the ‘landskip gardener’ build a new House thereon’. He therefore ‘bought Charles Bridgeman, and appears to have been on Buckingham House at Chelsey [in ], in an Air he terms of easy familiarity with many of the architects thought much healthier, and near enough to the and artists he employed. Town for Business…and having the Conveniency of The rd Duke acquired the lease of his house in a Prospect over the Thames ’. This remained the Upper Grosvenor Street in for £ , . Beauforts’ principal London (albeit suburban) Beaufort House in Mayfair – latterly Gloucester residence until the st Duke’s death in . Neither House, and more recently Grosvenor House – was the nd Duke (d. ) nor the rd Duke, however, lived erected in – by Walter, st Viscount Chetwynd. in Chelsea, which was sold in ; both resided in The large detached house stood on a trapezoidal modest town houses in Piccadilly until the mid s, parcel of land which enjoyed a long frontage to Park when the third Duke, eager to establish a more Lane; it is the site of the present day Grosvenor magnificent establishment in town, moved to the House Hotel (Fig. ). The dwelling was set back western fringes of the fashionable Grosvenor Estate some ninety feet from Upper Grosvenor Street in a in Mayfair. funnel-shaped ‘Gravill’ courtyard. The latter had a Henry Somerset, rd Duke of Beaufort ( – ) narrow opening into Upper Grosvenor Street called succeeded to his estates at the age of seven. He was the ‘Grate Gate’ which was flanked by a pair of educated at Westminster School and matriculated at porters’ lodges. A narrow passage on the east side of University College, Oxford at the age of thirteen. At the house led from the court to the back garden,
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Whilst many purchasers might have been content to buy the leasehold of the large house and its capacious south-facing garden, Beaufort, with characteristic extravagance, demanded and secured the lease of ‘two other Several Pieces of Ground lying Southward’ of his new garden in order to protect his ‘free Prospect into and over Hyde Park and the Adjacent Country’. It should be remembered that when the Duke took his new premises that Park Lane – or Tyburn Lane as it was then known – was ‘a narrow, rutted and unlit track alongside a high brick wall which screened it from the park’. The road was still unpaved and ruinous and dangerous to passengers in many parts. It was not until the early s that many of the ‘independent houses of substance’, such as Camelford, Breadalbane and Somerset House, began to appear in Park Lane; and none had a garden to compare with that of Beaufort House. The Duke’s newly refurbished garden was evidently of sufficient consequence to figure prominently on Rocque’s Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster in (Fig. ). The garden plan is, in fact, delineated with striking accuracy: a variety of elements depicted on the Survey are described in the – building accounts – most notably the Court, the ‘Grase plat before ye house’, the ‘Sweepes’, the ‘Coatch Road’, and the ‘Great Slope’. Rocque – who described himself as a ‘dessinateur des jardins ’ – stated in his Proposal (c. ) that his New, Accurate, and Comprehensive PLAN would ‘admit…an exact Description of all…considerable Houses and Gardens’. The Fig. . Plan of Beaufort House and its garden in . layouts of other ‘considerable’ town gardens at Gloucestershire Record Office . Marlborough, Montagu, Burlington and Devonshire Houses, which are also shown on the Survey, also ft. wide by ft. long. The domestic offices were appear to be reasonably accurately portrayed. It is situated in a small block west of the house, and the not, therefore, surprising to find Beaufort House stable block stood further south along the Park Lane garden fastidiously delineated on the Survey, frontage. Access to the stables, the garden, the drying especially as the Duke is known to have subscribed yard and the offices was gained by the ‘Back Gates’ to the new map. set in Park Lane. Whilst it is clear from the building accounts in
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Fig. . John Rocque, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster , , showing Beaufort House and garden in the triangle bounded by Upper Grosvenor Street, Park Street and Tyburn Lane (now Park Lane). the Badminton muniments that the Duke lavished of most of the garden materials – from the imported great expense on the refurbishment of his newly turf to the ‘pink Edgings’ and the ‘Colleflower acquired house, the precise nature of the plants’. We know, for instance, that ‘ yards of Box improvements is unrecorded. There are, however, at d pr yard’ planted yards of hedging, that ‘ full accounts for the ‘New making & altering’ of the Honnysuckells of Dutch Sorts’ were planted in ‘ye garden. These records are particularly interesting as Borders and on ye Dwarfe wall Round ye Sweepes’, they document the building of one of London’s and that the three-quarter acre garden was recast grandest early eighteenth-century town gardens. with astonishing speed. The garden was created in Among the papers there is a scrupulous account of the short spell between th December and th the day by day construction of the gardens, as well as January , although doubtless there was some weekly reports which list all the labourers and their form of garden in place when Turner arrived. contributions, and notes on the provenance and cost Building a large garden in town could be a costly
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET and complex exercise. The Duke’s garden cost £ at the Palace when he undertook the Duke’s s d. The mobilisation and supervision of teams of commission, he appears to have come to London for gardeners, and the supply and delivery of plants and the duration of the work. He informed the Duke that building materials were among the responsibilities he gave the work ‘My Caire and attendance…all the that were generally entrusted to a master gardener. Time it was Doing’ because it was ‘what your Grace Master gardeners were professional serving pleases to order me’. Turner did, nonetheless, work gardeners who had undergone strict and protracted closely with his foreman Robert Winter; and both indentures. They were generally over twenty-five men collaborated regularly with William Banks, who years old, and had, as journeymen, been apprenticed served as the Duke’s clerk of the works. for at least one year in three distinct situations: a Presumably Turner and Winter recruited their public botanical garden, a public nursery and a gardeners outside London as the vouchers record private garden. In the case of Beaufort House that the Duke contributed towards some of the garden the Duke’s London Estate Steward, Michael gardeners’ lodgings and travel expenses, including Aiskew, contracted ‘Richard Turner – Gardiner’ to tolls, and ‘watredge & porteradge’ of their tools. carry out the improvements. Skilled journeymen gardeners and common garden It is not known how Turner came to work for the labourers abounded in the western suburbs – and Duke. It is possible that he apprenticed under around Hampton Court in particular. It is, in fact, Charles Bridgeman, who had been employed by the possible that many of the gardeners employed by Duke at Badminton in Gloucestershire in the early Turner at Beaufort House garden also worked at the s. Turner might also have worked under Palace, as most of the Palace garden staff were not on Bridgeman at one of his London commissions. It is the Royal payroll, but employed directly by the Royal conceivable that at some time prior to he came Gardener. into contact with the celebrated landscape improver Surviving building vouchers suggest that work to when the latter was Master Gardener at Hampton the garden began in August when Robert Edwards Court ( – ). For although we know very little began to carry out repairs to the brickwork of the about Turner, ‘A List of Promotions for the Year ’ vaults under the ‘Coach Roads and the walls there to published in The Gentleman’s Magazine in August of Belongin’, the inside and outside of the house, the the same year reports that he was appointed stable yard and to the ‘Stone Steps prevey and ‘Gardener at Richmond and Hampton-Court garden Gate Next the Coach Road’. Mr Sparks and Palace’. Presumably he became under-gardener to others were concurrently engaged in ‘Digging Work’ George Lowe, who took on the mantle of ‘Royal and the delivery of clay to site. In as much as there Gardener at Hampton Court’ on Bridgeman’s death is no record of the raising of garden walls it can be in . Turner was evidently a talented assumed that they had been erected prior to the practitioner as his name had, in fact, been ‘bandied Duke’s arrival. about’ in the press in the same year ‘in connection The Beaufort House garden plan can be ascribed with the succession of Bridgeman’ as Royal with some certainty to Turner. Although not Gardener. That Turner was able to build the Duke startlingly original in composition, the garden of Beaufort’s town garden in just over eight weeks possessed some distinctive formal elements which with his team of twenty-five gardeners (‘ days are usually associated with the work of Charles work’), and continue working for the Duke three Bridgeman – the most conspicuous being ‘ye Great years later, suggests that he was an ‘able master’. [Turfe] Slope’. The slope at Beaufort House with Although Turner had only just donned his apron its great splayed paths closely resembles a similar
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET arrangement at the Duchess of Marlborough’s garden ‘Jessamin’ and ‘Small Loristinis’, and the borders at Wimbledon ( c –). The Duchess’s house was were planted with ‘Headed’ viburnum tinus set on an elevated plinth which gave on to a great slope (standards), and ‘ monthly Roses of ye Earley which fell away from the house. At approximately Sorts’. An assortment of fruit trees – including feet wide, feet deep and roughly ten to fifteen feet apricots, nectarines, cherries and peaches – may also high, Beaufort’s ‘Great Slope’ was a surprisingly have been planted on the walls. A single bay tree was grand and extravagant landscape gesture for a town set in the yard. garden. Not only did it require considerable fill to The large area, composed of four rectangular raise the slope, and excavation to lower the level of beds, shown on Rocque’s Survey was known as the the garden ‘Quarters’, it took ‘ [pieces of] Turfe ‘Quarters’. It was sunk well below the level of the from Barns Comon at s per Hundred’ to clothe the house and the pair of slopes. The accounts grassy bank and the drying yard (the turf was describe the work involved in making the feature: ‘Delivered up ye Crick by watter works’). The first the garden plan was staked out, the borders were gardeners began ‘a moing Roling & Cuting of ye trenched (‘ foot Deep’) and ‘good mold’ (soil) was Turfe of ye Slopes’ on th December and only added ‘to make up ye Borders’. The box edging was completed ‘Leviling & finishing’ on th January. then planted ‘Round all ye walks & ye End & Side The Great Slope was the most important with Strawburys & with pink Edgings’. The borders attribute of the garden: from the summit of the grass were subsequently planted with flowers and bank one commanded views over the ‘Quarters’ and vegetables. The accounts supply the names of most borders of the sunk garden, and the covenanted of the plants and the suppliers; the list makes gardens and yards of the neighbouring parcels, to the fascinating reading. It would appear that much of the park beyond. The slope was, in fact, a bold garden was given over to growing herbs and exaggeration of the natural topography of the site; the vegetables, such as beans, peas, cauliflower, cabbage, ground dropped by some ten to fifteen feet from lettuce, carrots, onions, radishes, cress, spinach and Upper Grosvenor Street in the north to Mount Street ‘Severall Sorts of arbes [shrubs] mint Sadge Rue in the south. Nor was the Great Slope the only slope parsley Time Beet penny Royall Rosemerry and in the garden: Turner raised a second, shallower turf Cammormile’. It is not, however, known in what ramp at the south end of the garden to conceal the pattern they were planted. Over , bulbs were boundary wall. also planted, including ‘Duble Snow Drops’, crocus, The accounts also provide considerable hyacinth, tulips and lilies. The garden also appears to information on other garden elements, including the have had an arbour, and an abundance of wall fruit. ‘Grase Plat’ (also referred to as ‘ye Sweepes’), the Six thousand nails were used to ‘Naile the [fruit] Drying Yard, and the ‘Quarters’. Trees against ye walls’. The grass plat was another Bridgeman-like Some garden elements depicted on the device, a large crescent-shaped lawn which formed a Survey are not accounted for in the records. For raised turf ‘plinth before the house’. The lawn was instance, Rocque shows three pairs of large black retained by a ‘Dwarfe wall around’, and had ‘ blocks placed symmetrically on the central axis of the Borders foot Deep Each & foot wide’. The garden between the house and the slope. These borders and the walls were planted with ‘ might possibly represent piers or plinths which Honnysuckells of Dutch Sorts’. supported sculpture. Halfway down the garden, at The Drying Yard was also a grassy enclosure. the centre of the ‘Quarters’ there appears a small The walls of the small ground were clothed with rectangular element which might possibly have been
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET
Fig. . Plan of Beaufort House and garden in . Grosvenor Estate .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET a basin or a sculpture; and spaced equidistantly In this respect the rd Duke of Beaufort’s aspirations across the bottom of the garden are five small circles were no different than his fellow citizens. The Duke which might conceivably represent standard trees. doubtless appreciated the benefits of having the use Turner and his retinue returned to Surrey on the of a garden in town. As a man whose business th January having put the finishing touches on required that he should be constantly in town the the ‘Gravill Road’, ‘Be[a]ting ye Grase’, ‘Raking ye Duke wished to ‘have something of a Garden at any Court Yard & Stable yard’, and planting out the rate’. beans, lettuces, cabbages, cauliflowers and seeds of The manuscript accounts reveal a wealth of several sorts in the Quarters. Who maintained the information not only on the rd Duke and his garden afterwards remains unknown. The garden gardening tastes, but the activity of commercial was not, however, entirely complete, as a bill for £ gardening in early eighteenth-century London; and s from ‘Turner Gardiner’ dated suggests that it Turner’s achievement provides us with further was still undergoing alterations two years later. evidence that town gardening was a flexible, well- There are no records of further garden repairs after organised and professional business. This particular the death of the Duke in . There is, none the less, case study should, however, most importantly, the first mention of the regular employment of encourage us to take a fresh look at Rocque’s Survey gardeners: in the gardener Thomas Dale was with a view to reappraising its hitherto underrated paid £ s d, and the following year he was representations of urban garden space. replaced by Thomas Shore who was paid £ for ‘Care of the Garden’. The Beauforts retained their Mayfair house until , when the dowager Duchess (wife of Charles ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Noel, th Duke) sold the property to HRH the Duke Thanks to His Grace the Duke of Beaufort for of Cumberland for £ , . Sadly the sale permission to consult the Badminton muniments, documents contain neither a description of the and to His Grace and the Gloucestershire Record garden, nor does the ‘schedule of goods proposed to Office for permission to reproduce them in the be sold’ tell us much about its contents. appendices, to Richard Dalton for granting me access Subsequent surveys from the nineteenth and to the Grosvenor Mayfair Estate papers, to Margaret twentieth centuries show us that the grounds Richards, Archivist, Badminton House, and to underwent a range of improvements under its various Simon Thurley, John Harris, Ralph Hyde, Terry new owners, until the house and garden were finally Gough, Jeremy Smith and Joe Friedman. swept away in to make way for the Grosvenor House Hotel. Although the Duke of Beaufort’s spacious garden may have disappeared, its memory was not entirely obliterated, as the then owner, the nd Duke of Westminster, donated the garden’s topsoil to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. In the Swedish travel writer and botanist Pehr Kalm asserted unequivocally that town gardens abounded in London – that Londoners ‘sought to have some of the pleasant enjoyments of the a country life in the midst and hubbub of the town’.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET
APPENDIX I
GARDEN BUILDING PROGRAMM E
The acct of the Days Works of the Men Employd in New making & altering of his Grace the Duke of Beauforts Garden in a work man like maner …[?] per Grosvenor Street London begun Monday Decbr ye th – by Orders of a Letter from Mr Banks Sirvair £ s d Decbr Works at s pr Day gardeners all at the work
- Men a moing Roling & Cuting of ye Turfe of ye Slopes a wheeling Dung out of ye Stable yard -- - Men at Ditto & Raugh Leveling of ye Coatch Road -- - Men at Do & wheeling of Gravill to ye Road -- - Men a Wheeling out Gravill & wheeling in Mold to Ye Grase plat before the House -- - Men at Do & Cuting of Turfe of ye Slope -- - Men at Do --
- Men a Raking & leviling ye Grase plat before ye house & making Borders foot Deep Each & foot wide and wheeling out ye Gravill & wheeling in good mold -- - Men at Do & Cuting Turfe wheeling to ye Drying Yard & Wheeling out ye Rubish & gravill from Ditto -- - Men at Do & Raking & Turfing ye Drying Yard -- - Men at Do & Wheeling gravill of ye Corner by ye house & wheeling in mold to make it good feet Deep -- - Men a making Borders one Each Side of ye Dwarfe wall & one Border in ye Drying yard wheeling out the gravill & wheeling in mold feet deep Each -- - Men a wheeling Turfes & laying it between ye plinth before the house wheeling Earth to ye Drying yard [days] --
- - - Men a Rough levelling of ye great Slope finishing ye Drying yard - - - Men at Do & wheeling mold from ye Slope - - - Men at Ditto - - - Men a wheeling mold to ye Borders from ye Slope - -
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET
Janry / - Men a Leviling & Turfing ye Great Slope & wheeling of mold - - - Men a wheeling of mold to ye Borders - - - Men a Leviling ye Great Slope - - - Men a Nailing & pruning of ye Wall Trees - - - Men at Do & Cuting of Shreads & Sharping of nails - - - Men a Leviling & finishing of ye Great Slope - - - Man a pruning of Box -- - Men a Trenching of ye Borders & making of them wide a taking out ye gravill & wheeling in good mold -- - Men at Ditto planting of Box Edgings -- - Men at Ditto -- - Men at Ditto & planting of Flower Roots -- - Men at Ditto & finishing of ye Borders -- - Men a Turning of ye Gravill & wheeling on new gravill -- - Men at Ditto -- - Men a finishing of ye gravill walks & Rolin them - - - Men a Trenching of ye Quarters foot Deep - - - Men at Ditto - - - Men at Do & Roling of ye Gravill - - - Men a finishing of ye Gravill Road -- - Men at Do & Treadin & Roling of it -- - Men a Roling ye Gravill & Beting ye Grase -- - Men a Raking ye Court Yard & Stable yard -- - Men a Beting ye grase & Roling ye gravill -- - Men a planting Beans lettuce Indue Cabbadges Colleflowers and arbes of Severall Sorts Seed Seeds of Severall Sorts -- days in all The Tottall £ - -
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET
APPENDIX II
PLANT MATERIAL
The acct of what is Bought to plant Set & Soe to Make your Graces Gardin Compleat in ye Borders and Walls all over the Gardin and Turfe & Carridge from Decbr the th to Janry the th / £ s d ye For Honnysuckells of Dutch Sorts to plant in ye Borders and on ye Dwarfe wall Round ye Sweepes -- for Sweet Bryers to plant in ye Borders & walls -- for Bundells of Staks to Stake out ye worke -- for yards of Box at d pr yard which plantes yards -- for a Team to Bring ye Tooles the things a Boug..[?] - - for of d nailes to Naile the Trees against ye walls -- for Shreads to nail the Trees with -- the for of Turfe from Barns Common at s pr Hundred Delivered up ye Crick by watter works -- for ye Carridge of Load at s pr load of Turfe - - for warfeadge & expenses for ye Turfe -- for of d nailes more for ye walls -- for ⁄ a of d nailes for Ditto -- for Shreads to naile with more & lift[?] -- Janry ye / for Jessamins for ye Drying yard -- for - Small Loristinis for ye Drying yard wall -- for Headed ones for ye Borders - - for monthly Roses of ye Earley Sorts -- for Trained apricots Trees of years old for ye Corner - - for apricots of one year old -- for a newing peach & a Roman nectron -- for a merrelow Churry -- for one Bay Tree -- for of Earley Beans plant out Inches high -- for a Roe of pease Rods long to plant out -- for potteles of ormerits pease to Soe -- for a Quant of Cavalina pease too Soe -- for a of Colleflower plants -- for of Cabbadge plants to plant out -- the for of Lettuce plants to plant out -- for Indue plants to plant out -- for Severall Sorts of Seeds Redish mustard lettuce Spinadge parsley Carrot onion Creses and Charvill --
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for Severall Sorts of arbes mint Sadge Rue parsley Time Beet penny Royall Rosemerry and Cammormile -- for a Bundell of arbor powles -- the for Duble Snow Drops at d pr Hundred - - for of Crocus Roots at s pr Hundred -- for Hyersanth Roots of good Sorts -- for of ye Common Sorts -- for Duble Annimoney Roots - - for Ranunculis Roots - - for Tulip Roots of good Sorts -- for Striped liley Roots -- for munks woods Roots -- for Junquill Roots -- for Stocks to plant out -- for patekew [?] Roots -- for Duble Red Pink Roots to Edge ye Border one ye in Side of them -- for Carridge of the Tooles Home a gaine --
the Tottall £ --
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NOTES
Ruth Duthie, ‘The planting plans of some the English Landscape Garden , Newcastle upon seventeenth-century flower gardens’, Garden Tyne, , , , . History , XVIII, no. , Autumn , – . Gloucester, Gloucestershire Record Office The development of the early house and its garden (hereafter GRO), QJ /, QA / , PB /; London, has, until recently, been shrouded in mystery. The London Metropolitan Archives (hereafter LMA), Survey of London (hereafter SOL ), XL, , , Middlesex Deeds Register, // , // ; does not refer to the house as Beaufort House, GRO, QA / (legal cost of purchase, ), PB / although it was known as such from to (lease, ) and QJ / (payments for purchase). [Badminton muniments]. More recent scholarship The Survey of London remarks ‘who the builders on eighteenth-century aristocratic town houses in of the house were, and what the house looked like Mayfair also fails to recognise the presence of are both unknown’. It states, furthermore, that ‘it Beaufort House. See M.H. Port, ‘West End Palaces: is not clear how a detached house came to be built the Aristocratic Town House in London – ’, in Upper Grosvenor Street’ [ SOL , XL, , The London Journal , XX, no. , , – ; Port – ]. makes a passing reference to Chetwynd House ( , SOL , XL, . n. ), and Grosvenor House ( , n. ). Grosvenor House Hotel was erected in – John Strype, A Survey of the Cities of London and [SOL , XL, – ]. Westminster , II, , . The gates are referred to in a blacksmith’s voucher The nd Duke was living at – St James’s Street of [GRO, QJ /]. from –, and died in St James’s Square in . The sale agreement of states that in the original The rd Duke took no. St James’s Square from lease there were ‘Beneficial Reservations Covenants – [SOL , XXX, , ; XXIX, , ]. and Agreements Calculated and Intended for Vicary Gibbs, The Complete Peerage , II, , . In Preserving a free Prospect from the said Capital Beaufort married Frances, only daughter and Messuage [Beaufort House] into and over Hyde heir of James, nd Viscount Scudamore of Holme Park and the Adjacent Country. And for Preventing Lacy, Herefordshire. By Act of Parliament in the Erection of any Building or either the said two the Duke took the name of Scudamore on Parcels of Ground beyond a certain Heighth succeeding, in right of his said wife, to Holme Lacy therein…’ [GRO, PB /], ‘Middlesex – For and the other estates of that family [ Dictionary of Miscellaneous Press Articles for the Sale of Beaufort National Biography ]. The Duke died on House to William Duke of Cumberland May February ‘worn out by a complication of ’. See also LMA, Middlesex Deeds Register, disorders’ in his th year. // , // . John Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish The land extended from ‘Mount Street Southward Travellers in Italy – , London, , . The to Chapell Street behind certain Messuages Situate Duke’s journey extended from August to May on the West Side of Hyde Park Street and the other . of said Parcels of Ground extending the Length London, Public Record Office, State Papers, from Chapell Street aforesaid Southward to South Foreign, / (Florence – ; Colman , Street behind certain other Messuages Situated on December ); Ingamells, op. cit ., –. The Duke the West Side of Hyde Park Street’. The ground was shipped over ninety-six cases of works of art from ‘Fenced in and Divided by Brick Walls or otherwise Leghorn in ; Julia Abel-Smith, ‘The Badminton into Several Small Pieces used for Yards or Gardens Cabinet’, in The Early Eighteenth Century Great or Other Conveniences to the Messuages behind House , Oxford, . them’. [GRO, PB / ( )]. I am grateful for John Harris for this information. SOL , XL, . Howard Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Idem . Architects – , New Haven and London, Sadly there are no other known plans, contemporary , , ; Peter Willis, Charles Bridgeman and views, or topographical accounts of the early gardens.
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Rocque began surveying for the map in , soon George Lowe was Royal Gardener , or Master after the completion of the first round of Gardener at Hampton Court Palace from to improvements at the Duke’s garden [Ralph Hyde, [‘Record of Master Gardeners at Hampton The A to Z of Georgian London , Ashford, , v]. Court’, Hampton Court Palace, Gardens and Rocque described himself thus on his plan of Estates Department, c ]. Richmond House, garden, park and hermitage Willis, op. cit ., , n. . Other contenders were ( ). Swinlow, Green, Lowe, and Dent. Published proposals issued by John Rocque and William Banks was employed as surveyor and clerk John Pine, c. . The rd Duke of Beaufort and ‘Mr of the works at Badminton and in London by the rd –Turner, Gardiner’ also subscribed to Rocque’s An and th Dukes. Previous to his employment by the Exact Map of the City’s of London…near Ten Miles rd Duke he was employed by Francis Coy, a builder, Round ( ). Ralph Hyde kindly supplied me with in buying lands and houses in London, pulling them this reference. down, surveying and making plans for rebuilding, The bricklayers’ vouchers indicate that ‘Alterations’ drawing up building contracts, etc. [Information were carried out to the ‘Vaults under the Coach provided by Margaret Richards]. Roade’, the ‘back Staires’, the ‘Garden Gate next the Longstaffe-Gowan, op.cit. , . Coach Road’ and the stables. Voucher of All royal gardeners pursued private work on the September [GRO, QJ / ]. side. John Harvey remarked that ‘Lowe may have Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, The London Town Garden founded the private nursery at ‘Kingston (Hampton) – , London and New Haven, , – . Wick’ – presumably to supply plants and labour to Michael Aiskew ‘of Westminster, Esqr’, ‘served the the Palace as well as private commissions [John [nd ] Duke in all his private affairs’; he gave him Harvey, ‘Mid-Georgian Nurseries of the London both financial and legal advice. He continued to Region’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex serve the nd Duke’s trustees in the same way during Archaeological Society , XXX, , ]. the rd Duke’s minority. Under the rd Duke, Aiskew The clay may have been used to build the Great became Steward of the London estate, auditor, and Slope or the central basin. handled the payment of most of his Grace’s bills. London, Westminster City Archives (hereafter His employment seems to have ceased with the WCA), Grosvenor Mayfair Estate Papers, Grosvenor death of the rd Duke. Information provided by Building Agreements, , . The garden walls were Margaret Richards, Archivist, Badminton House. certainly raised before the houses in Park Street In the early s Bridgeman collaborated with were built along the eastern garden boundary. The James Gibbs and the surveyor John Prince on the ten houses on the east side of garden – with development of the Cavendish Harley Estate in frontages in (Hyde) Park Street – shown on the Marylebone, and in he and his brother in law Beaufort House survey of , were raised in the John Mist were entrusted with the layout and late s. The dwellings which lay to the east of the construction of central area of St James’s Square. He ‘two other Several Pieces of Ground lying was also retained for ‘keeping ye Garden’ at Southward’ (the present sites of Fountain and Montagu House, Bloomsbury between and Aldford Houses) were erected from to the mid for Ralph, first Duke of Montagu [Willis, op. cit., s [ SOL , XL, op. cit ., – ]. – , –, –]. Willis remarks in his monograph on Bridgeman that Bridgeman lived much of his life in London. He ‘turfed ramps and terraces forming these ‘Slopes’ are moved to ‘an old house’ at Hampton Court in . familiar elements in Bridgeman designs, and appear The dwelling was a perquisite of Royal Gardeners. on such Bridgeman-like drawings as those of Moor Bridgeman died in Kensington [Willis, op. cit ., ]. Park in Hertfordshire…and Farley Hall in Gentleman’s Magazine , VIII, , . It may not Berkshire’ [Willis, op. cit ., , , –, –]. be a coincidence that one John Turner was Keeper Willis, op. cit ., fig. b. of Hampton Court Palace for the s. The two Raised terrace walks were, on the other hand, men might possibly have been kinsmen. I am commonly found in town gardens where there was grateful to Simon Thurley for this reference. the possibility of a prospect beyond the boundaries
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of one’s garden. Early eighteenth-century engraved GRO, QJ /. views, and plans show that the gardens of Ibid ., QJ /, Accounts for – . Marlborough, Montagu, Burlington and Devonshire Ibid ., PB /. Houses had similar features that gave views out on The survey included in the sale documents is to the neighbouring countryside [examples can be reproduced as Figure in this article. The ‘schedule seen in Strype, op.cit ., passim ]. of goods proposed to be sold’ lists a handful of Slopes and/or raised terraces could be found at most garden items included in the sale: ‘in the of London’s more capacious gardens, including [Stable]Yard, a Lamp & Iron, step Ladders, a Dog Montagu House and Burlington House gardens. For Kennel, Troughs lined with lead for the Dogs, a a discussion on the importance of town garden Copper Sett Complete.. [in the] Garden Stone boundary walls see Longstaffe-Gowan, op.cit. , Rollers in Iron Frames, Wood Roller, a Nest of – . Drawers for Seeds a Cupboard, and Iron Shovel… Semi-circular shaped lawns were one of [in the] Front Yard Large Lamps of Iron, Lamps Bridgeman’s stocks-in-trade; they could be found at fore Door & Sides of the Yard Do. In the Garden’. numerous Bridgeman gardens, including Claremont [GRO, PB /]. ( – ), Wimbledon, and Ledston ( c ) [Willis, SOL , XL, – . op.cit ., , and plates – b, b and b]. The Times , October , g. This was a common device in seventeenth- and Kalm’s Account of his Visit to England on his way to eighteenth-century town gardens. See the garden of America in , Joseph Lucas, trans., London, Pierrepont House, Nottingham [Longstaffe-Gowan, , . op. cit. , ], and ‘The Plan of Mr Tallard’s Garden Thomas Fairchild, The City Gardener , , . att Nottingham’, plate included in Francois Gentil, Longstaffe-Gowan. op. cit ., – . The Retir’d Gardner , trans. by George London and GRO, QJ /. Original spelling and punctuation has Henry Wise, II, London, , reprinted by been retained, although superscript characters (in Garland Press, New York. such words as y e, p d, rec d, etc.) have transcribed in Trees were generally tied to the walls using lower case. ‘shreads’, or small strips of cloth. See Samuel Idem. Johnson, Dictionary, London, .
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