Capability Brown

Lancelot "Capability" Brown
A portrait painting of Brown painted by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1773
Born
Lancelot Brown

Kirkharle, Northumberland, England
Baptised30 August 1716
Died6 February 1783(1783-02-06) (aged 67–68)
London, England
Occupations
Spouse
Bridget Wayet
​
(m. 1744)​
Children8

Lancelot "Capability" Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783)[1] was an English gardener and landscape architect, a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style.

Unlike other architects including William Kent, he was a hands-on gardener and provided his clients with a full turnkey service, designing the gardens and park, and then managing their landscaping and planting. He is most famous for the landscaped parks of English country houses, many of which have survived reasonably intact. However, he also included in his plans "pleasure gardens" with flower gardens and the new shrubberies, usually placed where they would not obstruct the views across the park of and from the main facades of the house. Few of his plantings of "pleasure gardens" have survived later changes. He also submitted plans for much smaller urban projects, for example the college gardens along The Backs at Cambridge.

Criticism of his style, both in his own day and subsequently, mostly centres on the claim that "he created 'identikit' landscapes with the main house in a sea of turf, some water, albeit often an impressive feature, and trees in clumps and shelterbelts", giving "a uniformity equating to authoritarianism" and showing a lack of imagination and even taste on the part of his patrons.[2]

He designed more than 170 parks, many of which survive. He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement.[3] His influence was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors Charles Bridgeman and William Kent are often overlooked; even Kent's champion Horace Walpole allowed that Kent "was succeeded by a very able master".[4]

  1. ^ "Lancelot Brown". Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 2007. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  2. ^ Wickham, 2
  3. ^ McKenna, Steve (17 April 2016). "Highclere Castle: The real-life Downton Abbey". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  4. ^ Walpole, Horace (1905) [1780]. On Modern Gardening. Canton, Pa.: Kirgate Press. p. 87. at Internet Archive