1728 Garden writer Batty Langley 1696-1751

Batty Langley  Written by Mike Rendell

I love this blog posting by Mike Rendell about Batty Langley who wrote of English gardens in the 1st half of the 18C.  In fact, his entire blog, Georgian Gentleman, is fascinating!  Batty Langley's books often appeared in colonial British American libraries in the 18C.

Batty Langley, print made by J. Carwitham, 1741

"Many know of Capability Brown, some know of Humphry Repton, but one name largely overlooked is Batty Langley. Batty was baptised at Twickenham on 14th September 1696, the son of Daniel & Elizabeth Langley. His father was a jobbing gardener who seems to have been working for a David Batty, so the name may have been given to the baby in tribute to this patron. Batty Langley grew up in his father’s footsteps, keen on gardening but determined to spread his wings rather than pottering around with a spade & pruning knife.

"At the age of 23 Batty married, but his wife Anne died after producing 4 children from 7 years of marriage. He remarried & went on to sire another 10 children, to whom he bequeathed such fanciful names as Euclid, Vitruvius & Archimedes…

New Principles of Gardening, or, the laying out and planting parterres, groves, wildernesses, labyrinths, avenues, parks, c. London A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, 1728.

"Batty Langley received a commission to do some design work for Thomas Vernon at Twickenham Park. There he encountered a large sandpit & managed to convert “this perfect nuisance” into “a very agreeable beautiful” spiral garden, using hornbeam hedges. It was the start of a fascination with shapes & serpentine mazes which led him in 1728 to publish his oeuvre “New Principles of Gardening; or The Laying out & Planting Parterres, Groves Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues Parks etc”

"The sub-title gave claim to the fact that the methods described in the book were more ‘Grand & Rural’ than anything before, listing “Experimental Directions for raising the several kinds of fruit trees, Forest Trees, Ever Greens & Flowering shrubs with which gardens are adorn’d.”

New Principles of Gardening is profusely illustrated with 28 copperplate engravings.

"The book contained very little new, but the illustrations were influential in bringing to people’s attention the use of shapes & winding vistas – he wanted gardens to lead the visitor through the design, rather than have everything in full view. There should be surprises around each corner or, as he put in the introduction: ‘Nor is there any Thing more shocking than a stiff regular Garden; where after we have seen one quarter thereof, the very same is repeated in all the remaining Parts, so that we are tired, instead of being further entertain’d with something new as expected.’

"In other words it marked a move away from the rigidly, geometrical knot gardens favoured by the Elizabethan & Stuart gardeners, even if the world was not yet ready for the picturesque gardens of Capability Brown. Batty loved mazes, but often introduced swirls & patterns far removed from the traditional honeycomb designs.

Inspired by the gardens at Versailles Langley occasionally suggested improvements to their design

"In some ways his ideas were right at the start of the rococo movement; the problem was that this self-publicist thought that he was now the arbiter of taste in all areas of everyday life. He brought out books on carpentry & furniture design, prompting Horace Walpole to utter “All that his books achieved, has been to teach carpenters to massacre that venerable species, & to give occasion to those who know nothing of the matter, & who mistake his clumsy efforts for real imitations, to censure the productions of our ancestors, whose bold & beautiful fabrics Sir Christopher Wren viewed & reviewed with astonishment, & never mentioned without esteem.”

"He submitted a design for a new Mansion House in London in 1735, only to have it described in the ‘St. James’s Evening Post’ as ‘a curious grotesque temple, in a taste entirely new…’ Undeterred, he pursued his ideas of “arti-natural” gardens, linked with what is now termed “Batty Langley Gothic” architecture. He felt that his writhing shapes & flowing designs were ‘exceeding beautiful in building, as in ceilings, parquetting, painting, paving, &c.’

"He published numerous tomes on building techniques, & on architecture under such inspiring titles as ‘The Builders Compleat Assistant’ (1738); ‘The City & Country Builder’s & Workman’s Treasury of Designs’ (1740); ‘The Builder’s Jewel, or the Youth’s Instructor & Workman’s Remembrancer’ (1741); ‘Ancient Architecture, restored & improved, by a great variety of Grand & Useful Designs’ & in 1748 ‘A Survey of Westminster Bridge, as ’tis now Sinking into Ruin.’

"In general though, he was ridiculed for his designs for buildings. But for his gardening book he deserves to be remembered. ‘Arti-natural’ may not have been revolutionary but at least Langley encouraged trees to have a natural form rather than being pollarded out of existence. Look at a serpentine shape or a paisley design, & remember Batty Langley with affection.

"He died at his Soho home in London in 1751."

Henry VIII uses Piero de’Crescenzi’s c 1306 Liber ruralium commodorum (On the Rural Arts) to plan his gardens

From The Telegraph UK By Gordon Rayner, 23 Jan 2015

Henry VIII's horticultural manual revealed

The world's oldest gardening manual, part of Henry VIII's library...

Portrait of Henry VIII at the National Maritime Museum

"He was certainly an expert on dead-heading, but Henry VIII’s gardening tips would also have included fertilizing squashes with the ashes of cremated humans and planting lettuce in a ball of goat manure, a new exhibition reveals. The Tudor king’s personal copy of the world’s first gardening manual, believed to be the inspiration for the lost garden of Whitehall Palace, is to go on display at Buckingham Palace. Written more than 700 years ago, the Latin text includes instructions on how to lay out a “royal garden,” including instructions on building walks and bowers “where the king and queen can meet with the barons and lords when it is not the rainy season.”

"The leather-bound volume was part of the king’s library, which acquired it on the death of its previous owner, Richard Rawson, the king’s chaplain and advisor on his divorce from Catherine of Aragon in 1543. Written between 1304 and 1309 by Petrus de Crescentiis, a lawyer from Bologna, the Ruralia Commoda contained advice on how to grow giant leeks, how to produce cherries without pits and growing different colored figs on the same tree.

"It tells gardeners that “cucumbers shake with fear at thunder,” while a squash will bear fruit after precisely nine days if planted in the ashes of human bone and watered with oil. To get the tastiest lettuces, the manual recommends planting lettuce seed together with a radish, nasturtium and colewort inside a ball of goat manure.

The leather-bound manual is illustrated with woodcuts 

"Its instructions for planning a royal garden are equally precise. It should occupy a plot of at least 20 acres, its size and perfection an expression of a king’s status, wealth and mastery over the environment. It should include fragrant herbs because they “not only delight by their odour, but…refresh the sight.” A bench made out of turf and flowering plants, a highly fashionable feature at the time, was a must. The overall effect was that “the king will not only take pleasure, but…after he has performed serious and obligatory business, he can be renewed in it.”

"The book was acquired by Henry at around the time he built the Great Garden at Whitehall Palace, which burned down in 1698. A portrait of Henry, Jane Seymour and their children Edward, Mary and Elizabeth by an unknown artist, which shows the newly-planted garden in the background, is to be displayed next to the book. Vanessa Remington, curator of the exhibition, said: “This is no coffee-table book, but a real, thumbed-through and annotated gardening manual, showing that its various owners referred to it time and time again. Although it is impossible to know, it is tempting to think that Henry VIII may have sat in his library and looked through it for inspiration.”

The Maze at Hampton Court

"Henry laid out the gardens at Hampton Court (pictured) and Whitehall Palace at the time he acquired the book. Neither Tudor garden survives. The hedge maze in this photo is an outdoor garden maze or labyrinth in which the "walls" or dividers between passages are made of vertical hedges. Hedge mazes evolved from the knot gardens of Renaissance Europe. Early garden mazes began to appear in the 16C. These initial mazes were constructed from evergreen herbs, but, over time, box became a more popular option due to its robustness. Italian architects had been sketching conceptual garden labyrinths as early as 1460, and hundreds of mazes were constructed in Europe between the 16C-18C.  Initially, the hedge maze was not intended to confuse, but to provide a unicursal walking path. Puzzle-like hedge mazes featuring dead ends and tall hedges arrived in England during the reign of King William III of England. It was possible to get lost in the much-admired labyrinth of Versailles, built for Louis XIV of France in 1677 and destroyed in 1778. This maze was adorned with 39 hydraulic sculpture groups depicting Aesop's fables. The oldest surviving puzzle hedge maze, at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey, England, was built for King William in the late 17C. Its distinctive trapezoidal shape is due to pre-existing garden paths running alongside the maze. 

"The 11in x 16in volume is illustrated with woodcut prints, including a drawing of the supposedly deadly mandrake root, resembling a naked man with leaves growing from his head. Ms Remington said: “What is really appealing about it is that on the one hand it is full of sensible advice about how to prevent soil drying out, about grafting and pruning, that we still do today, and on the other it contains quirky tips that are very much of that era. It shines a new light on Henry, a different aspect of his king-making, one that we haven’t really got any other evidence of.”

"The manual, which has never been translated into English, stayed in the royal library until 1757, when it was transferred to the British Library, and later went through several private owners before being re-acquired for the Royal Collection by Queen Victoria."