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! 

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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
 

Rousham, A Kentian masterpiece.

Rousham in Oxfordshire

Rousham is arguably the finest garden in England but undoubtedly William Kent’s finest work. William Kent (1685-1748) was called Cant before he changed his name; he thought Kent would sound better to the gentry. He took a garden that had originally been laid out by Charles Bridgeman (1690-1738) and completed in 1737 on more formal lines. Kent altered it, and now you will find it almost unchanged from Kent’s time. Horace Walpole wrote of Kent that ‘’He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden’’. These are the most important and profound words ever put to paper on garden history.   

S. Harmer 2012

On the hill can be seen the ‘sham’ ruin. A single wall to make as though the garden and its architecture extend into the distance and to give a perception that the garden extends further than it actually does. These features are sometimes known as ‘eye catchers’ This is a perfect example of Kent’s work showing his ‘concealment of bounds’ and bringing the countryside and landscape into the garden. In the foreground the cottage has been altered on the right hand end to look like it could be an old fortified house. This was done to make the vista more interesting to the eye.

            S. Harmer 2012

The ha-ha plays an important part at Rousham by ‘concealing the bounds’. Between the long horn bull and Rousham house is the ha-ha. There have always been long horn cattle at Rousham.

Rousham is the perfect example of the Augustan style, the first period of the English landscape movement. The exponents of this style celebrated and strove to renew the past glories of ancient Rome. They also celebrated England’s peace and prosperity after the civil war. The Augustan landscape is categorised by classical architecture and sculpture as seen at Rousham.  Of course there were also voices raised against the formal gardens of England that preceded gardens such as Rousham. Raised against them for many reasons including social, economic and political. One of these voices belonged to Joseph Addison, writing in the Spectator in 1712 he stated, ‘Our British gardeners on the contrary, instead of humouring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones, globes and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissors upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but for my own part I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriance than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure’.

S. Harmer 2012

The stature is one of either two figures. Some say that it is Apollo while others that it is Hadrian’s lover Antinous. General Dormer was greatly interested in Antinous and he is the most likely candidate. The figure looks outwards away from the garden and down towards the River Cherwell. Again showing the garden is integrated into and moving out to the wider landscape.

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The Praeneste is a seven arched structure which was Inspired by the temple complex of Palestrina near Rome. It was not placed to be seen until you were on the return leg of the journey around the garden, almost a ‘Grand Tour’ in miniature. Again the iconology is that of ancient Rome.

Iconography can confuse the interpretation of a garden and Rousham is no exception. The garden can be read on many levels. In its simplistic form Rousham pays homage to ancient Rome and the Imperial games. This can be seen for example in Sheermakers work depicting a mortally wounded gladiator, perpetually dying. The gladiator can be seen simply as what he is, a gladiator dying from his wounds inflicted by another in the games. Here we have the simple reference to ancient Rome. Others may argue that on another level  the gladiator represents General James Dormer who owned Rousham and commissioned Kent from 1738 until Dormers death in 1741. Dormer was wounded at the battle of Blenheim and the dying gladiator most likely is a reference to the general, himself severely wounded in battle and never recovering from his wounds.

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The dying gladiator

The garden can also be seen as a representation of the Elysian Fields, the mythological resting place of the Roman soldier.  Elysia the place of peacefulness and calm which is supposedly the final home of the brave who died in battle. Again was Dormer creating his own Elysian fields? The Elysian Fields are portrayed in other gardens such as Stowe and Painshill Park. The garden at Rousham is believed to be Dormers own journey from life to death and from light into darkness. The garden indeed displays this when you move from areas of light into areas of heavy shade. We can also see a reference to Caesar with the sculpture depicting Pan and Venus. Caesar claimed descent from these mythological beings. 

 

S. Harmer 2012

The illustration shows the ‘rill’ and octagonal bathing pool. Kent canalised the water to form the rill. It has a fluid serpentine movement and winds its way through the understory planting of Laurel. Laurel is mainly used in English landscape gardens as a dense evergreen planting and kept at the height seen. The rill moves down to the Vale of Venus. At some point the rill was wider and deeper than it is now as there are firsthand accounts of fish swimming here.

Lastly what defines Rousham now is that it has not followed the National Trust philosophy of endless gift shops and cafes with hundreds of screaming children running around the gardens followed by worn out parents. Rousham remains as it has always been a sea of tranquillity with children under sixteen not permitted. How wonderful!

Rousham Gardens are open every day of the year from 10 am. Last admission is at 4.30 pm and the gardens close at dusk. Tickets for the garden are £5 per person.

http://www.rousham.org

Book Review: Therapeutic Landscapes by Clare Hickman.

Therapeutic Landscapes: A history of English hospital gardens since 1800  by Clare Hickman 

The designed garden space, our micro-environment has fundamental reasons for its planning, conception and implementation. The garden can be a place of pastoral calm, to find solitude after the day. Maybe the space functions on a lesser level, and is purely a place to entertain or to relax, by simply maintaining it. Whichever role the garden assumes one thing is unarguably true, the garden space is what we need to function and to be aware of the natural environment around us, no matter on what scale. The garden in a higher or lesser way can bring us peace and improve the psyche. With this in mind, Clare Hickman in her fascinating and insightful book demonstrates clearly and cleverly the importance of the hospital garden and the perceived therapeutic value to speed recovery from physical or mental illness. The idea that a garden can improve the well- being generally of a patient is not a new idea; Clare looks at the work of 16th Century physician Andrew Boorde who stated that, ‘a person’s house should have a prospect or view in order to avoid ill health’.

Clare states that the ‘aim of this work is to draw on detailed site specific research to explore the medical and cultural significance of a variety of therapeutic landscapes created over the past 200 years’.  This indeed has been overlooked by garden historians as Clare rightly says, these gardens seen as ‘unimportant additions’.

It is interesting to read about the rise and fall of the hospital garden and factors that govern them such as economics and the drive towards ‘clinical effectiveness’ that at times as meant functionality and sterility outweighed aesthetic value to the patient. The case has sometimes been that the psychological benefits are overlooked which is important in terms of economics itself, as Clare makes the point in the book that patients with access to a garden or the ability to see a green space can need less intervention and have a speedier recovery time, a cost saving in itself.

The book looks at English hospital gardens since 1800 and comes up to present day. The conclusion discusses the modern approach to hospital gardens and it is reassuring to read the quote by Clare Cooper Marcus that, ‘appealing, soothing and accessible spaces in hospitals are simply essential not dispensable’. But in these times of economic instability and austerity, with NHS budgets cut to the bone, cost of implementation and maintenance will continue to be a curtailing factor, gardens being seen as non-essential, despite the facts that show otherwise. Clare explains that the naturalistically orientated designer Dan Pearson is designing some hospital gardens and that his design for the Charing Cross, Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre, ‘certainly seem like part of the coherent whole and an essential part of the buildings fabric’.

The book is a scholarly work and must equate to an inestimable amount of research. A person could not produce a work such as this without an overriding interest in the subject; thankfully Clare obviously has this, which means another important facet of garden history is brought to the public domain. I recommend this book as an interesting and excellent read.

Garden Design in Ancient Egypt

Egypt’s main artery was the Nile, the river that ‘fed’ the narrow valley that is the Nile delta, depositing rich fertile silt on the land and providing life giving water. This rich fertile silt supported agriculture and was used to ameliorate the sandy garden soil. The improved soil can still be identified as Nile mud in planting pits on archaeological sites where gardens existed. The silt mud was also mixed with chopped straw and moulded to form mud bricks for garden walls.

Egypt had been inhabited by a nomadic people but they became sedentary using basic agricultural techniques to provide food.  Once agriculture was established and providing food to support growing communities’ the early Egyptians turned as well to aesthetic considerations and religion. Gardens become part of both of these in their non-nomadic culture.              

So what were the catalyst for the Egyptians desire to design and build gardens? The answer lays in Mummification, festivals, and offerings for the dead. Gardens were used as the space to grow the necessary plants for these. We also know that the atheistic value of a garden was important and the very act of having water and keeping it cool was a show of status and wealth. The art of mummification although a crude and basic practice at first needed plant material to provide essential oils for the mummification process; these were provided in gardens, although not all were grown in Egypt, some were imported from the ‘Land of Punt’ (Somalia). The Egyptians loved flowers and flowering plants and they played a major part in every day life. Bellinger describes this when he says ‘Flowers were frequently used by the ancient Egyptians for special occasions such as festivals, funerals and to decorate the tombs of pharaohs and gods. Depending on the occasion, the flowers were combined into bouquets, garlands and collars’. When Howard Carter opened the tomb of Tutankhamun he discovered the remains of a floral tribute on the coffin of the boy king and a floral collar inside the inner coffin.

When death occurred, the body of the Pharaoh, their family, priests or the wealthy would be prepared, mummified and taken to a tomb. The upper chambers were decorated with wall paintings and a shrine in the form of a statue of the deceased would be displayed. The body would be lowered down a shaft into a lower chamber and then sealed. The relatives and friends of the deceased would on a daily basis bring offerings to place in the upper chamber; these offerings would consist of food and flowers, needed so they thought when the dead returned each night from the afterlife to their tombs. Again some of these offerings would be produced in gardens and tomb gardens. At times once the tomb had been filled and the offerings placed inside they would be totally closed and concealed.

Gardeners were important workers in view of the fact they were able to produce plant material and ensure it survived in very hostile conditions; floods, very high temperatures during the day and cold at night, dry scorching sandy winds and sandy soil. Egyptian gardeners also needed to be able to build mud walls and learn the art of irrigation. As today good gardeners were sought after. But life was hard as a gardener. Hobhouse describes this. ‘The garden labour had a tough life, transporting soil, watering, building dams with sand and mud, removing sand blown in from the desert and digging and fertilizing’. A piece of verse was found inscribed in a tomb that summed up the life of a gardener.

‘The Gardener carries a yoke

His shoulders are bent as with age:

There is a swelling on his neck, and it festers.

In the morning he waters vegetables,

The evening he spends with his herbs,

While at noon he has toiled in the orchard.

He works himself to death

More than all other professions’.

Until 330BC when Alexander invaded Egypt, its isolation; protected by the desert and the defensible Nile meant that it was able to become stable economically and politically. The Egyptians grew and prospered in their welcome isolation. Without war and with a stable economy, money was available to be spent on gardens and labour was plentiful. Egypt’s isolation however had the effect of stifling progression in garden design for over one thousand years. Garden design styles tend to change relatively quickly, but in Egypt, excavation discoveries, tomb paintings and writings on papyrus or stone show no changes in garden design.

Egyptian society was highly ordered and structured, this transposed down into their gardens which were designed along the same lines. The garden space was  geometric and mainly laid out symmetrically, helping irrigation, which could be carried out more easily with irrigation channels running in straight lines. The water brought into the garden could be moved far more quickly than if it had to negotiate bends and turns. The garden irrigation systems were controlled by sluice gates and the garden at times would be flooded to ensure adequate water penetration.

S. Harmer 2011The garden painting from Nebamuns tomb.

One of the most useful representations that exist of an Egyptian garden is the wall painting from Nebamun’s tomb, discovered in Thebes. The painting which is in the British Museum dates from c.1380 BC and has a long and interesting history in its own right. This painting shows the basic layout and design of an Egyptian garden. The important central pool being a vital component, it housed the fish required for food and cooled the air, which in turn kept down biting insects.  Water was extremely important and was the key to Egyptian life. The fish painted in Nebamun’s pool can be identified as Mullet and puffer fish. Ducks and geese can also be seen that again provided food in the shape of meat and eggs. Egyptian garden pools were sometimes designed as T- shaped, as this was the shape of the dock that the boat taking you to the afterlife would moor at. Also the T-shape was the shape of the table that funeral offerings were placed at, so this design was highly symbolic.

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The plant seen in the pool is the Lotus flower; the Lotus was particularly revered and was held in high esteem; a very important plant with religious significance, as described by Bellinger, ‘The Lotus was a sacred plant, the Nymphaea caerulea. The flower was sacred and even the root could be made into bread. The blue flower was a powerful symbol of life and re-birth. The Lotus featured everywhere in tombs and temples, and was also used as perfume’. Around the edge of the pool can be seen black Nile mud in a border with flowering plants, they were used for festivals, offerings and also had purely aesthetic quality.

S.Harmer 2011The garden painting from Nebamuns tomb.

This part of the painting shows the trees that were grown in Egyptian gardens to supply fruit and provide shade. These would include date palm, doum palm, Sycomore fig, Pomegranate and olive. The tree in the middle is the date palm, the hot sun producing sweet dates. Trees were planted in straight lines and in some gardens in rows according to their species. Trees were also used as windbreaks around gardens but both had to be built and planted higher than the flood level of the Nile.

The garden painting does not show a wall but all Egyptian gardens would have had one; constructed from Nile mud bricks. The garden wall served several purposes, to keep unwanted people, wild animals, including crocodiles out of the garden. They also provided a barrier to the sand, as due to Egypt’s climate; drying winds, scorching heat and the desert, sand was moved around freely and was deposited everywhere. Built high enough they could also help provide shade. Sand penetrated everywhere; many Egyptian mummies show various degrees of tooth decay and abscess caused by teeth being worn down by sand in the food.

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Ancient Egyptian skull showing a severe abscess  

This illustration shows the terrible abscess that was caused by the tooth being worn down by sand. The infection ate into the bone and must have caused terrible pain.

So what influence has the ancient Egyptian style of garden design had through history and today? Firstly the Egyptian garden in its formal style was the forerunner of the Persian garden, and so then the Moorish gardens of Spain. The idea of the geometric shaped garden along with a protective wall has continually been used since ancient Egyptian times. The wall was only less important at times in garden design history, for example in the period of the English landscape movement when the ha-ha ‘concealed the bounds’. The importance of the Egyptian legacy is described by Hobhouse ‘The ancient gardens of Egypt, visually familiar from tomb paintings, have a particular interest for gardeners today. The functional irrigation system that the Egyptians perfected, using the flood waters of the Nile, inspired the garden patterns found throughout the emerging civilized world. By the second millennium BC the Egyptian idea of a garden had spread to the Levant, through both military conquest and trade, and into Mesopotamia, influencing garden development on geometric lines’.

The Egyptian pyramid also influenced English garden design; some were designed and built in the 18^th century as garden architecture, in gardens built in the Augustan period of the English landscape movement. The pyramid at Rousham designed by William Kent is thought to have been inspired by Vanbrugh’s pyramid at Stowe which was lost in the 19^th century. The pyramid in the English landscape garden was designed like the ionic temple for example to symbolize and represent the ancient and classical world. The temple in the illustration is at Rousham and was built as a view point over the river Cherwell below it.  

S. Harmer 2010

Kent’s pyramid at Rousham

Pyramids built in landscape gardens tended to be designed at a far steeper angle than the originals. The angle of the sides was greatly accentuated, maybe for a far more dramatic affect or possibly to gain height and effect without taking up a lot of material for its construction, so the reason may simply have been economic.   

At Chiswick house we see stone sphinx guarding the entrance to the villa and garden. The sphinx was thought to protect and guard your property and of course again it symbolised the connection with the ancient world.

S. Harmer 2011

The Sphinx guarding the entrance to Chiswick house.

Another Egyptian feature that was used in many gardens was the obelisk and again it was designed and built to connect the ancient world with the garden and show the education and understanding of the owner. The ancient world was so revered. The Egyptian influence in English garden design is also thought to symbolise the masonic tendencies of the garden owner and the designer, the sphinx for example having significance for masons.

S. Harmer 2011

The illustration shows the connection with the classical world and the ancient world, both being represented. There have been other connections with ancient Egypt in the form of topiary pyramids and turf pyramids, designed and used in the Italian renaissance through to the English renaissance and the French baroque. A garden design style that started a few thousand years before Christ was thought to be born has had relevance and significance in garden design ever since it was conceived.