Painshill, Hamilton's Landscape

                                                    Painshill

The Painshill Park Trust, a registered charity, has worked tirelessly since its inception in 1981, to restore the ornamental pleasure grounds, designed and created by Charles Hamilton (1704-1786) between 1738 and 1773. Hamilton started to create the pleasure grounds the same year that plans were being drawn up by John MacClary, based on William Kent’s ideas for the naturalization of Rousham. Painshill and Rousham were at the forefront of the move away from the formal English garden style, but as Rousham followed a strong philosophy, Painshill was designed to be a series of changing ‘scenes’, an eclectic mix inspired by, but not subservient to, the classical world. This can be seen in the varied architecture and the choice of planting that drew in new, rare, and exotic plant species from America.

Hamilton visualised his design as though an artist, constructing his landscape as if creating a painting. The planting, architecture and layout of Painshill were all designed to be a living canvas. Professor Timothy Mowl describes early English Landscape gardens like Painshill as ‘Arcadian Picturesque’, and ‘Savage Picturesque’ for later gardens. The picturesque style is associated with paintings and the Picturesque (higher case ‘P’) is the aesthetic style.

S. Harmer 2013

The photograph shows Hamilton’s main vista as seen from the Turkish Tent. In the distance the Gothic temple can be seen and in the middle the Grotto is just visible. In the foreground is the recently rebuilt Five Arch Bridge

The topography did not lend itself easily to Hamilton’s plan, but with judicious planting; height and slopes were accentuated, removing the need to move vast amounts of soil, which would have been extremely costly. Planting was also matched to the changing scenes found on the circuit of the grounds. The Hermitage stood among a mix of fir, pine, birch and larch giving a feeling of wildness, while the Elysian Fields contained flowering trees and shrubs with wonderful scent to give the feeling of arcadia. Hamilton also had to install a water wheel on the River Mole to lift water through pumps to the cascade, this in turn supplying the lake; some metres higher.

S.Harmer 2010

The 19^th century water wheel, not Hamilton’s original, this one built by Bramah & Sons in the 1830’s.

Hamilton designed various architectural features to instil different feelings in the beholder. One such feature was the Mausoleum, a representation of a Roman Triumphal Arch, designed as a ruin and meant to invoke a feeling of ‘melancholy’, (a desired state of mind at that time) making the beholder aware of one’s own mortality.

S. Harmer 2013

The Roman Triumphal Arch

Hamilton, as regards available funds was always disadvantaged compared to other garden builders in the 18^th Century. He did try to supplement his income from the civil service and his employment with the Prince of Wales; by producing and selling his own Champagne from grapes grown at Painshill. He also had a tile and brick works hidden behind the Ruined Abbey, built for this purpose, and which was built used his own bricks. Unfortunately a good deal of the money used to build Painshill was borrowed and in 1773 his worried creditors forced him to sell up.                                                                                                           

S. Harmer 2012

The Ruined Abbey that Hamilton built to hide his brick and tile works.

Important and influential people of the day visited Painshill and overall it had mixed reviews. In 1763, John Parnell wrote; ‘It is inconceivable how beautiful Mr Hamilton’s grounds appear, all spotted with pavilions, clumps of evergreens or forest trees’. This view contrasts with William Gilpin who visited in 1765 and said about the view from the Turkish tent; ‘too much patched by clumps; and ye eye is disagreeably caught by white seats, and bridges, and ye grotto’. But of course this is hardly a surprise coming from Gilpin; who did though enjoy the Cascade, with its rugged and natural landscape.

Hamilton commissioned the building of a hermitage and advertised for a suitable resident. A hermit living in a garden may seem strange now, but they performed an important role, not only as visual entertainment, but as an embodiment of a simple solitary life, full of moral purity, but also adding a hint of darkness, and melancholy. Hamilton’s conditions of work were that whoever took this employment (the successful candidate being a Mr Remington) would be contracted to; live in the hermitage for seven years and not utter a single word to anyone, never cut his beard, hair or nails and never leave the confines of the garden. He would be given a bible, an hourglass, optical glasses, a mat for a bed and a hassock for a pillow. He was to be supplied with water from the stream and food from the house, and he would wear a camlet robe. The wearing of sandals was forbidden and along with the robe it is possible Hamilton wished to give the illusion of a druid. Unfortunately Mr Remington only lasted a few weeks and did not stay the seven years to earn what would have been a considerable sum of money. The story goes he was found drunk in a pub in Cobham! 

S. Harmer 2013

The reconstructed Hermitage placed back in its original position during 2004. 

Hamilton commissioned the grotto makers Joseph Lane to build his Grotto between 1760 and 1770; they did this for around £8000. Hamilton would have seen grottos and nymphaea in Italy on the ‘Grand Tour’, these influencing his design. The Grotto was brick built from Hamilton’s own works and faced with oolitic limestone. The internal walls were lined with calcite, gypsum, quartz, and fluorite. The roof held a framework shaped like stalactites and covered with crystals, making what was described as the finest grotto in England.

The grotto has just undergone a full restoration and is now open to the public again.

The restored grotto

The Painshill trust was awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery fund to restore the grotto and rebuild the Woollett Bridge. The Grotto alone is worth visiting Painshill for, but the whole garden is an example of a sympathetic restoration and a garden that must be visited.

Photographs taken form the Press day opening of the restored grotto

There are other features not discussed here, so explore Painshill and enjoy the garden; once again it is in very safe and capable hands with more restoration projects to follow.

S. Harmer 2013

The photograph shows Hamilton’s Turkish Tent. Here his guests would find refreshment waiting for them on the return leg.

                             The Island that Appears to Float, Isola Bella. 

Up until the 19^th century in Italy, gardens and garden design was controlled by landscape architects. The change that came was overwhelming, when plant species from around the world came pouring into Italy. New and exotic plants became the driving force in garden design, the designer now being superseded by the plantsmen, for the first time. The north of Italy assimilated this change readily, mainly as the new trees and shrubs lent themselves to the English Landscape park style garden, readily accepted in the North due to the climate, an English ex-pat community and the difficult shape and topography of the lakeside gardens which were not suited to the formal terraced Italian style.  In 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte had invaded Italy from the North and a little later took Lucca, which he gave to his sister. She resided at what was then called Villa Orsiti, now named Villa Marlia and proceeded to change the garden into the English landscape style, less formal and with new imported trees and shrubs from faraway places. The new fashion had been dictated and the change was swift.

There are a few gardens on the lakes that have stood the test of time and remain truly baroque, resisting any change to the English style, thank heavens. One of these is Isola Bella, a garden on Lake Maggiore, Piedmont,  which was commissioned in 1631 by Count Carlo Borromeo III; it was constructed over a 40 year period and can only be described as a baroque masterpiece. Isola Bella is one of the best surviving baroque gardens in Italy and subscribes to the philosophy of using a garden as an overwhelming show of power, knowledge and wealth, an ostentatious display, aimed purely to create shock and awe.

Symbolically the statues look outwards embracing the landscape, acknowledging the move to enlightenment.

 The garden was laid out to look like a galleon on the water and this was achieved; the southern end rises up in terraces like a ships superstructure, forming a truncated pyramid. It has been described as the hanging garden of Lake Maggiore and Monty Don described it wonderfully by saying.

'The garden looks like a mad battleship wearing a party frock'.

The pyramid terrace designed to resemble the stern of a great galleon.

The pyramid is topped by a balustraded terrace where the Borromeo family held lavish celebrations and admired the perfect vistas gained by being 37 metres above the lake. The terraces and the garden in general were planted originally with typical Mediterranean plants such as citrus, until that is the 19^th Century when the new plant imports were reaching Italy from China, India, the Americas, the Himalayas and Australia when these new acquisitions were accepted into the garden.      
The island is of an irregular shape and therefore not suited to the preferred geometric composition normally found with the renaissance and baroque style, the main axis of the garden could not be aligned centrally with the palace; this was cleverly disguised by the architect Angelo Crivelli. Many tons of marble, granite and soil were shipped onto the island to build the palace and garden, a huge and expensive undertaking.  
 

The gardens most impressive feature is the Teatro Massimo, the Maximum Theatre; this can be seen after exiting Diana’s Atrium from a flight of stairs and onto a lawn area where the most magnificent baroque scene presents itself before the suitably impressed viewer.

 

The Teatro Massimo, one of the most splendid baroque statements of power and wealth.

 The water theatre has pilasters, niches and balustrades, everything constructed from granite and tufa pebbles. The niches house statues of gods and goddesses as well as giant scallop shells, the whole creation topped off at the highest point with a rearing Unicorn, the symbol of the Borromeo family. The unicorn was carved in 1673 and is flanked by seated figures representing art and nature.

The rearing Unicorn, the symbol of the Borromeo family is the highest point, ensuring all can see who has the power here.

In the upper central niche sits a giant, personifying Lake Maggiore while below two lesser figures represent the Rivers Ticino and Toce. At the bottom Centre, stands the Goddess Dianna supported on either side by two nymphs. Four obelisks and four sculptures are there to represent the four elements. Air is seen on the left as a woman holding a flowering branch, earth on the right is an old woman holding a branch, water is a mature man on the left and fire is on the right depicted by a man with an anvil holding an arrow. The whole scene is baroque theatre and extravagance at its best, but it has not been, and is still not to everybody’s taste, being described unfavorably at times and seen as garish.

 

Two towers were built on the southern end of the garden; the tower on the west side named The Tower of Noria was constructed in 1633 and housed the pumping system that lifted the water from the lake to supply the gardens irrigation system. The east tower named The Tower of the Winds seen in the photograph was built purely to create symmetry and is now the book shop.

The Tower of the Winds built to create symmetry with the opposite tower that housed the great pumping system.                                                                              
                                                                                                  
   

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Water effects would play in the theatre but unfortunately today it is only partially working but this detracts nothing from the garden. The palace itself is a must see experience, to enjoy it and its treasures along with the garden, allow a day so you can also take a short water taxi trip to the nearby Isola Madre and visit the botanical garden with its exceptional collection of trees and shrubs.
http://www.visitstresa.com/Isola_Bella.htm