Inspired by Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin in Wiltshire and Somerset
WHEN I WAS a teenager, I made excursions – day trips – to places outside London with a small group of friends. Being too young to have driving licences, we had to rely on public transport. One place that we always wanted to get to is on the border between Somerset and Wiltshire: the gardens at Stourhead. Sadly, despite much research we could never find a way to reach it by public transport. It was only many years later (in the second half of the 1990s) that using a car, my wife and I were able to visit this place that my friends and I yearned to reach in the 1960s. We have visited Stourhead several times, both before and after the covid19 pandemic. Our latest trip there was on the 8th of July 2024. Despite it having rained extraordinarily heavily the previous day, the paths in the garden were not waterlogged.
The gardens were laid out between 1741 and 1780. They were designed to resemble the arcadian scenes as portrayed in paintings by Claude Lorraine, Nicolas Poussin, and Gaspar Dughet. The designer and source of inspiration for the gardens was the banker Henry Hoare II (1705–1785), also known as ‘Henry the Magnificent’. The resulting horticultural creation is a remarkably successful realisation of what had inspired him. A central water feature – a lake – is fed by streams and rivulets. Around the lake, are a series of picturesquely positioned neo-classical pavilions, a bridge, a Tudor cottage (which existed before the garden was created), and a man-made grotto.
One of the neo-classical structures, The Pantheon (designed by Henry Flitcroft; 1697-1769 – he died in London’s Hampstead), contains a set of 18th century sculptures of Ancient Greek gods and heroes. It also contains a well-preserved Ancient Roman statue, which one of the Hoares bought while travelling in Rome. It was interesting to enter this building because on all our previous visits, it had been locked closed. Another pavilion, smaller than The Pantheon, contains a huge white vase made from Coade Stone (made from clay, quartz, and flint), which was regarded as a ‘wonder’ material by architects and designers in the 18th century. In those days, it was cheaper than most stones and timber. It is named after the businesswoman Eleanor Coade (1733-1821), who was very successful at marketing this material invented by Daniel Pincot. The reason I write about this is that currently there is a small exhibition about Eleanor Coade in the small neo-Classical pavilion that faces The Pantheon across the lake.
Even if you are unable to enter any of the pavilions surrounding the lake, a visit to Stourhead Gardens is a magical experience. Here, nature has been guided into creating the 18th century ideal of a classical landscape. It brings to life the Latin expression ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’, which means something like ‘even in Arcadia, there am I’.
