Early 18C 1712 English Gardens - Badminton the Seat of the Duke of Beaufort Brympton in Somerset, England

Brympton in Somerset Leonard Knyff (1652-1722) &  Johannes Kip (1653-1722)  1709 Folio. Copper Plate Engraving 1709 London for Britannia Illustrata Or Views of Several of the Queen s Palaces also of the Principal seats. Detail

Thomas d'Evercy purchased the estate in 1220 from the Chilterne family. The d'Evercy family derived their name from Evrecy, a village near Caen in Normandy. Thomas d'Evercy was part of the retinue of the Norman Earl of Devon, which is the reason he left the family estates on the Isle of Wight to reside in Somerset. D'Evercy represented Somerset & South Hampshire at the first Parliament of England. Following Thomas d'Evercy's death family records are scarce until the time of the last d'Evercy, Sir Peter, who twice represented Somerset in Parliament, under Edward II. The church next to the house, St Andrew's, dates from this period. Sir Peter founded a chantry at Brympton d'Evercy in 1306, endowing a priest with a messuage and 40 acres in the parish.  Sir Peter died in 1325, when the estate was described as "a certain capital messuage, with gardens and closes adjoining." The village at this time consisted of 17 smallholders, & three tenant farmers. In 1343, the estate was recorded as: "..a manor house sufficiently built with a certain garden adjoining planted with divers and many apple trees, the whole covery some two acres" the record notes forty householders all charged to serve their lord as "village blacksmith, drover or domestic servant."

 Sir Philip Sydenham, 3rd Baronet (1676–1739) owner of Brympton at the time of this engraving.


English Heritage tells us that the property subsequently passed through several hands before being sold in 1430 to John Stourton, who acquired it as part of the dowry for his daughter Joan, who in 1434 married John Sydenham.  Joan Sydenham outlived her husband, & at her death the estate passed to her grandson, John Sydenham II. Brympton remained the property of the Sydenham family until 1722; & during this period successive owners rebuilt & developed the medieval manor house. In the late 17C century, Sir John Posthumous Sydenham (d 1696) built a new garden or south facade in a style reportedly influenced by Inigo Jones &  John Webb, & perhaps inspired by similar work at Hinton St George, his wife’s family home. This facade, together with formal gardens comprising a terrace, bowling green, wilderness, & ponds, is shown in an early 18C view by Knyff.

Early 18C 1712 English Gardens - Williamstrip the Seat of Henry Ireton Esqr

Williamstrip the Seat of Henry Ireton Esqr Leonard Knyff (1652-1722) and Johannes Kip (1653-1722) 1709 Britannia Illustrata 1724 ed pub by Joseph Smith

Henry Ireton (c.1652-1711), of Williamstrip, was a grandson of Oliver Cromwell.  Ireton, the son of one of Cromwell’s generals, was a grandchild of the Lord Protector through his mother. Though his father, a regicide, had died in 1651, perhaps before Henry's birth, the family estates were confiscated after the Restoration & vested in the Duke of York.  After the Revolution of 1688, Ireton was taken into the royal household as an equerry to the King, with whom he served throughout the war in Holland.  Upon the death in 1692 of his father-in-law, the ex-Speaker Henry Powle, he acquired the manor of Williamstrip & other nearby properties not far from Cirencester.

Early 18C Barrington (Park) in Cambridgeshire, the Seat of Edmund Bray, Esquire

1708-1715 House & Gardens at Barrington (Park) in Cambridgeshire Barrington the Seat of Edmond Bray Esq. Johannes Kip (1653-1722) The Ancient & Present State of Gloucestershire, pub by Sir Robert Atkyns 1712. 

Bird's eye view of Barrington Hall (Park), in Cambridgeshire, with extensive grounds enclosed by wall; a river in foreground.  British History Online tells us that four estates in Barrington were enumerated in the Domesday Survey. The estates of Llanthony Priory in Barrington formed the manor of Great Barrington, (which the priory retained until the Dissolution. The priory was granted free warren there in 1292.  The Crown granted the manor in 1540 to John Guise of Elmore, who sold it in 1553 to Richard Monnington of Barrington and his son-in-law, Reginald Bray of Northmoor. The manor descended in the male line of the Bray family until 1735, passing from Reginald to his son Edmund (d. 1620), to Edmund's grandson Sir Giles (d. 1641), to Giles's son Sir Edmund (d. 1684), to Sir Edmund's son Reginald (d. 1688), to Reginald's son Edmund (fl. 1720).

In the mid-17th century c. 35 people, including the owners of freeholds that had never been part of Great Barrington manor, held land in the open fields of Great & Little Barrington.  The open fields north of the river were two in the 16C, called Combe field & Slowe field,  and were supervised by two overseers.  Barrington Park had apparently been formed out of the open fields by 1412, when there were complaints by the copyholders that the Prior of Llanthony had deprived them of land and animals.  There may have been a deer-park as early as 1327, when an inhabitant of Great Barrington was surnamed 'at the leapgate.' One tenant was inclosing land in Great Barrington in 1567, & there appears to have been piecemeal inclosure during the next century & a half, including (to judge from the lines of former walls) the enlargement of the park. In 1704 there were still two open fields, but the process of inclosure was completed fairly soon afterwards.

Early 18C English Gardens - Shipton Moyne

Shipton Moyne the Seat of Walter Estcourt Esq Johannes Kip (1653-1722) The Ancient & Present State of Gloucestershire, pub by Sir Robert Atkyns 1712.

Early 18C English Gardens - Staunton Harold in the County of Leicester. England

Staunton Harold in the County of Leicester. EnglandLeonard Knyff (1652-1722) and Johannes Kip (1653-1722) 1709 Britannia Illustrata 1724 ed pub by Joseph Smith 

Parks & Gardens UK tells us that Staunton appears in the Domesday book as one of 210 "lordships" granted to Henry de Ferraris by William of Normandy, after the Conquest.  It was then ‘enfeoffed' (leased) to a feudal Saxon underling, Harold de Lecha.  It became known as Staunton Harold to distinguish it from other Stauntons (stony towns) throughout the country.

There was a deer park at Staunton by 1324 & later, two - the Little Park & the Great Park.  The Little Park is believed to have occupied the present parkland & therefore is of particular importance at Staunton Harold as a continuous feature of the landscape from that date.

In 1423, Ralph Shirley, one of Henry V's leading commanders at Agincourt, married Margaret, Heiress of John de Staunton.  The Staunton estate was then in the ownership of the Shirley family until 1954.

There is no documentary evidence to suggest any designed landscape at Staunton Harold before the mid to late 17C, although there would have been gardens, orchards & farms to support the community associated with the house.  In 1611, George Shirley was created 1st Baronet Ferrers by James I.  In 1623, the Great Park was turned into farms.

In 1653, Sir Robert Shirley, the 4th Baronet, built a church next to the Hall.  It is a significant building as it is the only church built in England during the period of the Commonwealth. Shirley's son, who was created Baron Ferrers in 1677, & Earl Ferrers in 1711, set about "aggrandising the hotch potch of Jacobean and earlier buildings which he had inherited." He added a new north-east front to the Hall & laid out extensive formal gardens around it. The location of the Church would have dictated the position of these gardens, which might otherwise have been positioned to the south of the house.

A contemporary described Shirley as "a great improver of gardening & parking." Country Life in 1913 states that "it is probable that George London who had laid out the neighbouring gardens at Melbourne may have advised him.  London certainly knew the garden & writes in 1701 to Thomas Coke of Melbourne of two visitors setting out to see gardens & plantations proposing to see "My Lord Chesterfield's, Lord Ferrers' & the Duke of Devonshire's."

The Hall & Gardens were illustrated by Leonard Knyff (around 1702) & engraved by Kip (1706).  A 1995 report describes them from the engraving: "The main garden, terraces ranged either side of a broad axial path & with a canal across the bottom, lay north-east of the Hall.  A summerhouse at the east end of the main cross axis adjoined the west end of a predecessor of the present causeway bridge, to the south of which, past the chapel, extended the rectangular Church Pool.  West of the southern part of the Pool was a roughly square block of woodland, possibly a wilderness.  Further pools lay along the valley bottom north of the Hall gardens." 

Nichols quotes a Mr Wooley's description of the garden in 1712, from his MS History of Derbyshire as follows:  "It has a handsome new front towards the gardens... the gardens are well-watered with fountains & canals, very good aviaries, a decoy, & stations for a great many exotic fowls.  The park & woods about it are large & reach within half a mile of Caulk (sic) & a mile of Melbourne but being seated in a clay soil, it is somewhat dirty coming to it....the east end of the church abuts on a very large canal, the biggest in all the county."  According to Nichols, the gardens lie on the north west side of the house, but, in fact, they lie to the north-east "consisting of several parterres in easy descents from the house, which add a gracefulness to the one & the other."

The height of one of the fountains was enhanced by the water being thrown from & then spilled down over a prominent stone column, not unlike the giulio in the Octagon Lake at Stowe.  This can be seen on the Kip engraving.  According to Nichols, MacKay in his tour through England early in the reign of George I, calls Staunton Harold "a noble seat... & the gardens adorned with statues"  For the first half of the 18C, there were few changes.

Early 18C English Gardens - Broadwell, the Seat of Danvers Hodges

Broadwell the seat of Danvers Hodges Esq. Johannes Kip (1653-1722) The Ancient & Present State of Gloucestershire, pub by Sir Robert Atkyns 1712. 

British History Online tells us that Evesham Abbey claimed that King Coenred gave it Broadwell in 708. If the claim was just, the abbey later lost Broadwell for a time, because c. 1034 the estate was 'redeemed' from Canute for the abbey by Ælfweard, Bishop of London.  The abbey held Broadwell manor. The abbey was granted free warren in Broadwell in 1251, &  in 1276 claimed the assize of bread &  ale. Broadwell was held with the abbey's estate at Bourton-on-the-Water by service of one knight's fee.

The population of Broadwell may have fallen slightly between the 11C & the 16C. Domesday enumerated 48 persons, including 13 servi; in 1327, 20 people were assessed for the subsidy; in 1381, 71 people paid poll tax; &  in 1563 there were about 20 households. The evidence for population in the 17C is contradictory; for example, there were said to be about 24 families in 1650, while 42 householders were listed in the hearth tax assessment of 1672. The only violent disturbance known to have impinged on Broadwell occurred in 1646, when the parliamentary army came up on the rear of royalist forces between Donnington &  Stow.

Part of the abbey's estate in Broadwell was not sold with the manor in 1545. In 1619, the manor itself, apparently comprising only the demesne, was bought by Anthony Hodges &  William Chadwell, who divided it between themselves in 1621. The moiety of Anthony Hodges, which included the manor-house of which Hodges was in possession in 1619, descended in his family to Danvers Hodges (d. 1721), who devised his estate to his 3 nieces, Anne, Mary, &  Martha.