Category: Capability Brown
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Remembering Capability Brown – Lady Nature’s Second Husband – and a little bit of Compton Verney
The English landscape gardener, Lancelot (Capability) Brown died 236 years ago today, 6th February 1783 – and fittingly is remembered on Twitter, via @BrownCapability: “Your Dryads must go into black gloves, Madam. Their father-in-law Lady Nature’s second husband, is dead! Mr Brown dropped down at his own door yesterday” wrote Horace Walpole to Lady Ossory…
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On the anniversary of Lancelot Brown’s death
Lancelot – Capability – Brown is best known as the creator of our current vision of the English landscape, so would it surprise you to know this is where he died? It happened on the 6th February 1783, 235 years ago today. Apparently the night before he’d collapsed on the doorstep of his daughter Bridget Holland’s…
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A garden and a library….
That’s all you need, according to Cicero, and I’ve just had a joyful residency in both! The Women’s Library at Compton Verney to be precise, looking out at grounds laid out by Capability Brown. The project was part of Spreadsheets and Moxie, a year of research and development into professionalism in the arts for women…
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Crossing the bridge at Compton Verney
When I say I love Lancelot Brown, I don’t mean it in the sense of ‘I deeply admire his work.’ No, I mean it in the same sense the teenage me wanted to faint every time I saw a photograph of Richard Gere. Yep, that bad. But perhaps it explains why I almost couldn’t cross the bridge…
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How to be Capable (ity Brown)
I’ve been thinking about Lancelot (Capability) Brown for probably far too long. Here’s a post I wrote about visiting his birthplace, Kirkharle in Northumberland. So it’s lovely to join in the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of his birth, with a series of poems coming out in the commemorative copy of the magazine for the Follies…
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A visit to Kirkharle – where Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown began
So, the above might not be the picture of a garden you’re expecting from the birthplace of the man who has been called the ‘Shakespeare of Gardening’ but the house that Lancelot Brown was born in was once situated where this car park now stands. It’s at Kirkharle Hall in Northumberland which was owned by…