The name Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (1716-83) has become synonymous with the eighteenth-century English landscape garden. Ruthlessly efficient, he could stake out the 'capabilities' of a particular terrain within an hour on horseback. Rising to the position of Master Gardener to George III, his trademark features included bald lawns, clumped trees, lakes and enclosing belts of woodland on the estate's perimeter, setting a park formula that lasted well into the next century. Laura Mayer presents a concise and colourful introduction to Brown and other leading landscape gardeners of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as William Kent, Richard Payne Knight and Humphry Repton. She explores how competing ideas in garden design were shaped both by changes in prevailing fashion and by the innovations of particular designers, and why Brown's designs are currently considered to be the epitome of landscape gardening in this period.

An illustrated history of the English landscape Garden with Capability Brown at its centre.

About the Author
Laura Mayer holds a PhD in eighteenth-century landscape and lectures on Humphry Repton and Capability Brown for the University of Buckingham. She is the author of Humphry Repton and co-author of The Historic Gardens of England: Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely.


Book Information
ISBN 9780747810490
Author Laura Mayer
Format Paperback
Page Count 64
Imprint Shire Publications
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 152g