Capability Brown - BBC Documentary 2016

these are some of the most magnificent landscapes in England they were designed by the person regarded by many as the first landscape architect and England's most famous landscape designer he traveled the length and breadth of the country improving more than 200 of the greatest Estates in the land for some of the most influential people in the 18th century 300 years ago he was baptized Lancelot today he is better known as capability Brown his skill and his nickname came from seeing what he called the capabilities of the landscape [Music] [Music] he bought the estate a fenstantin in Cambridgeshire it is the only land that he ever owned it is where he and his family are buried I'm bunny Guinness I'm a gardener and a landscape architect and in this program I'll discover what brown might have done to his own land today it is a piece of flat land bisected by a jewel carriageway to understand what he might have created I'm traveling the country to search for clues in some of his best loved landscapes I'll use the latest technology to show what his garden would look like as a completed capability Brown landscape whoa this is really exciting I'll reveal the man himself and create a picture of what could have been his missing masterpiece capability Brands unfinished Garden [Music] I'm starting my journey at Blenheim Palace this is a classic Lancelot Brown landscape he framed views with trees and improved the setting of the huge Bridge dominating the landscape is the great body of water two Lakes beneath the stone bridge 300 years after Brown The Gardens are mature and look pretty natural but they are entirely man-made Grand Estates were influenced by the Fashions of the day before Brown Gardens featured formal sections with clipped head ing complex patterns pattern like these more recent versions in the 18th century the fashion had changed from formal to natural and brown was the man to do it he runs a complicated business but he's still a genius I mean all he got to do is look at that landscape historian Tom Williamson is showing me around the Blenheim Parkland what would you say is Brown's main design criteria well I think one of the the things he's doing is he is looking at almost the raw topographic form the shape of landforms and the Contours and he's taking those and he's accentuating them where necessary I think that's how I would put it he's embellishing the natural language the the the the sort of inner truth of the landscape I suppose he would he might say and so with something like this almost the point of a lake is to show you the shape of the land there's nothing like the edges of a lake to show you the actual shape of the landform you wouldn't pick that up in the same way as a valley so it's taking natural landforms accentuating it where necessary the bridge was here before brown but without the lake beneath it looked out of place he improved the half-finished landscape that others had not or could not complete Brown is working for he uh the the richest people in the land the real top people and they have generally speaking not always but generally seats country states which have already been worked on by the best so in this particular case the house by John vambra the bridge by John vambra without the bridge this scene wonderful though is would not be the same but but Brown doesn't design the bridge that's there that's already quite an old structure actually [Music] so Brown reveals the capabilities of the landscape and the view of the bridge with vast Lakes he used hundreds of men to dig out the valley and line it with Clay to make it waterproof and he made it look like a wide natural River it's absolutely typical and you cannot see the ends I mean that's Critical with brown so the imagination makes it even bigger I mean I could go on like that forever that's the genius of it his genius is acknowledged in his nickname capability it was an affectionate term used only by Brown's clients Never by himself and his reputation soon spread amongst the wealthy dukes and Earls to keep water in the Lake Brown built a dam at the bottom end of the valley but it had to look natural so he concealed the engineering and made a feature of it in a surprise view which is another of his themes Brown's designs are made to be explored either on foot or in a in open topped Carriage of some kind this is almost like like a film with things Vistas opening and closing and things being revealed and sometimes surprises and I can hear a surprise around the corner supposed to evoke ideas of Italian landscape painting but it also has a functional purpose it's the outflow from the lake but that is the the level of the lake at the top and you can see just the beginning of the edge of the dam there and they have to have some way to get the water out because the water's coming at the top end through the river it shows how good he was at Water managing and Engineering absolutely Blenheim Palace has some wonderful clues for Brown's unfinished Garden which I'm going to gather and take back to Fen Stanton a lake is a must and the key is how Brown uses a serpentine view so the Valiant Lake appear to go on forever and I'm inspired by his water engineering skills the Cambridge events are flat and very watery in the middle of the van sandton estate is a modest stream as we saw at Blenheim Brown was a master of water technology so he could use this in his design not on the scale of Blenheim but using the same idea and technique to create a lake [Music] but where we don't have a lot to go on there are few records or drawings but there is a map of the fence Stanton estate it was drawn after Brown bought the land and it shows the original stream and a small pond in the middle of an area of grassland in Brown's day this piece of grassland would have been much much bigger and in order to understand where Brown might have put the lake I need to understand where he would have lived there are two man houses here both survived from when he bought the estate [Music] was his return is retargic he would have chosen the half the composition of his design because he died before he retired we do know which he'd have chosen for his home this manor house is in the center of fenstantin in the garden the current owner has some intriguing evidence of Brown's ownership so these are the apple trees that we the historians believe are actually planted by Brown they certainly look gnarled enough don't they they do look older without a doubt yeah but do they look 300 years old do you think we have a receipt for their purchase so this is the receipt from the nursery imaginingly Brown's Gardener bought a number of trees for his garden so we've got 19 apple trees here we've got an apricot which I think is actually quite unusual for those days some damsons and so the apples that are mentioned here could well be the apples that are in the garden now I wonder 300 years old possibly possibly possibly the better people than me think they are I don't know but it's a lovely story would he have lived here I think the key clue is the church it is the dominant landmark in the village and a view would have been included in Brown's design as there is no extensive view of the church from the manor house we can rule this out as his home there is another house where he might have lived lovely to meet you it's about a mile away from the village and has perfect views towards the church so you like the viewer huh oh I don't know I love the view fantastic waking up to that every morning delightful especially when you come down the stairs in the morning suddenly streaming down across the garden and into that Hubble you can see that this might be somewhere that balm would have loved to have lived it's when you consider the views it would have been if he'd lived long The View across there there would have been a lot of water and right the way around to here there would have been some water you have a stew Pond there and then that's very marshy there so you've got two or three really good elements he loved so in your heart of hearts do you think Brown would have lived here do you think he did live here I think his first choice would be I think to overlook the village that he had bought he would have loved to have lived here [Music] so I think that place is Brown's Lake somewhere along the line between the house and the church probably with some undulations around it and maybe even a bridge over it I'm happy that we know where the lake should be and where he would have lived but there's another feature in the view that he would have had to consider the village of Van Stanton foreign masterpiece the three valleys around Milton Abbey were once described as a Barren landscape and was brought in to create a grand scheme for the new and very wealthy Lord Milton and his recently built mansion He created a series of walks one such as this that as you round the corner you see your first glimpse of the Fantastic Abbey [Music] Lord Milton's new mansion was built on the old monastic ruins all that is left from the original Abbey is the church you have no idea what you're heading towards John Phipps is a landscape architect and biographer of brown [Music] Milton to me is so exciting wherever you go around this huge landscape you see the church now behind just out of a wood somehow rather they're always framed by Hills on both sides coming down see the church in a great dish of green grass running all the way around so the trees have keep coming in from the side as trees will yeah they used to be a man called Middleton it can be seen on the right in this Engraving the town was in the valley directly below me it was huge it stretched for a quarter of a mile right up to the Abbey but Lord Milton really did not want 500 people living on his doorstep so he decided to remove them and put some Lakes there instead Brown did not complete the lake but he did design the layout of the new Village of Milton Abbas Lord Milton wanted to remove Old Middleton from by The Abbey yes and brown in consequence was required to build a new Village here for all the people who lived in the Abbey yeah and my opinion is that brown then created the whole village and to do that he had to cut away the whole slope at the back here on that side big stuff in order to fit in this Serpentine beautiful Serpentine with the church running down at the at the pivot and so that's what makes the village so beautiful today is the way each house is set a little bit back from the next one it's unlikely Brown could afford to move and Stanton Village but there's another idea here that he used to make the most of a village without moving it he goes to this other Village confusingly called Hilton Hilton and Milton anyway Hilton is on the edge of the estate this is I think in the late 1770s towards the end of his time and he he ornaments now the Hilton Valley and he plants these Woodlands around the edge incorporating and embracing the village of Hilton and the village of Hilton he leaves completely unaltered [Music] I can see exactly what John Phipps means now the trees really embrace the village and sort of bed it into the landscape something he might well have done at Flynn Stanton Brown worked in almost every County in England I'm visiting his sights by car with speed and in Comfort but he didn't have this luxury Brown traveled by carriage or on Horseback up and down the length of the country [Music] about half a days wide North the fence sandton is burley House near Samford one of Brown's longest running projects there are some remarkable features here and we can also learn more about how he worked he created views using clumps of trees to appear like natural openings and designed to be best seen from a horse and carriage maybe this was why he was so good at assessing the landscape he really felt part of it traveling through it like this there that is fantastic here at Burley we can also see brown skills as an architect he altered the house as well as the landscape and inside we can discover something of his character here overlooking his magnificent work in the Great Park is a rare portrait of brown he's looking very relaxed and pleased with himself and this tells us something of his status in his later life when this was painted he had bought Fenn Stanton so he was Lord of his own manner had completed more than 130 projects and was still working on some of the biggest Estates in the land he was in demand from Rich and influential people who wanted a capability Brown landscape this picture shows he was more than a garden designer he was what we would term a celebrity lady Victoria leatham is a descendant of the Earl who commissioned brahan at Burley the Earl was a Most Interesting Man Brian would have been dealing with a man who was fizzing with ideas and bursting to impart knowledge and absorb knowledge so the two of them would have bounced off each other and I think that's what's so interesting why do you think the Earl wanted brownie in the first place well I think he had seen great Landscapes when he was traveling in Europe that was the first point second point is that I think he knew that the fashion was changing and he'd inherited something from his ancestors that wasn't absolutely his mix and the 17th century stuff would have been looking a bit Dody by the time he came along because there were a couple of elves in between who had no money as they hadn't done much and I think he thought the moment had come to rejuvenate Burley and he really wanted to put a bit of Welly into it and get it going and Brian was a man of the moment and so he would have approached him and Brian would have seen his chances he was an ambitious and effective operator he'd removed in here using the Earl's social contacts to make new contacts for himself new jobs popping up here and there his drawings showed the park before Brown started with formal pleasure gardens near the house the very magnificent formal Gardens that were here before Brown you see Engravings of them they were very extensive 25 gardeners and then all went away and how do you feel about that I think Brian was a vandal I think he was a very Visionary Vandal I think that he was a man who Incorporated a landscape like nobody else could have done but he was doing it from a very male Centric point of view which is my beef with him what Brian was used to doing was writing about looking at Vistas and looking at views and thinking the grand scheme of things and the strategy for the future which he was brilliant at Brown managed to make it float in its landscape and it is set like a jewel in the middle of this green expanse Brown's Vision was for open Parkland one of his trademarks is that is the design to keep livestock off The Lawns whilst avoiding a visible barrier looking from the house to the park and I have no doubt that he would have used a haha around his own house and there's another fabulous idea at Burley which could add some unexpected drama to his friend Stanton Garden this is the entrance to Brown summerhurst a very grand entrance it raises your expectations but then you open the door and all is revealed the view is all made by Brown the lake was new the hills were improved using Earth dug out from the lake and Brown's favorite trees Cedars of Lebanon offer views through their bars everything is placed for maximum effect so there are three wonderful ideas here that could really make a difference at fenstantin the big reveal provided by the summer house the use of trees to frame and conceal views and the haha which Incorporated a drainage system and would have helped with the flat wet fan Brown's projects made the most of natural features and improved them only occasionally did he face a landscape without Hills or valleys like his own land at fenstantin in the 1770s the Chancellor of Cambridge University invited Brown to design some alterations for the flat landscape behind the colleges it is known as The Backs and today it attracts thousands of tourists but if Brown had got his way these bends would have been straightened out the bridges would have gone this Historic Park would have looked very different colleges each had their own identity and their own formal Gardens Brown proposed that the single Landscapes be unified into one park with four separate paddocks widening the river to create a lake and removing formal Avenues Bridges and boundaries [Music] the resulting Parkland landscape was to be focused on King's College one of the newest and biggest buildings on the river it was to be Brown's centerpiece this is the Gibbs building at King's College imagine it as the mansion in a grand estate Kings appears to be the most important framed by trees which hide the other colleges and in effect relegates them to the equivalent of the stable blocks in Brown's composition [Music] that may be the reason why the scheme was rejected so more ideas for his unfinished Garden it's time to return to Fan Stanton to put these ideas together but have I gathered enough evidence so this is a house that befits the Lord of The Manor experts Tom Williamson and John Phipps and biographer Jane Brown have joined me at capability Brands house to agree the final design so I've taken my life in my hands three experts you might well have some views so here's Brown's house view straight through to the church up there the village I've embraced with clumps of trees I've then got a Long View down here with typical scalloped Edge planting to a focal point there I've increased the Watercourse somewhat to make this sinewa Serpentine lakes and the approach from the church coming down round and back like that it's the house like that so what do you reckon you have to think very carefully about where the where the bridge is because the bridge is going to be a leading feature currently you've got the bridge more or less in line with the church and you've got to wonder about well do I want it there or do I actually want the bridge somewhere around here to me the main part of the water has to be the bit that connects visually the house to the church which is this section here so I would tend to want to make that wider because widen this yeah but don't lose the river style of the lake we don't want too much thickening of the water and I think this is a bit suspect contradicts Johnny though it does I'm afraid it does well no I wanted to no it must look like a river so the Bridge moves and the water widens a bit but Tom is worried about the flatness of the site and the water I think the green is there because the rest of the parish is effectively plowed up and this is the bit they've left because they can't cultivate it and they can't cultivate it because it is basically a sink where the water is flowing in and and that to me is is one of the key problems you've got but he was a master of water management absolutely no no absolutely right but he's got to deal with the real world and this is quite a serious challenge I can't think of a case where Brown did a landscape that had serious drainage problems that he didn't manage to solve and he did take on some cracking difficult problems in the process okay I'm sure Brown would have been able to build these Lakes so I really like this bit I really like this valley-like effect I would think about trying to bring it round the corner so the valley effect might appear to be runny on indefinitely and you can't quite see it that's a good idea so I could just take the planting around there like that now the valley appears to go on forever similar to Burns Lake at Blenheim well if you didn't retire and let's rest on his Laurels I think this would be an enchanting landscape to implement and it would be great fun to do it and you've made a lovely a lovely job of it thank you very much do you think I think we've all managed to agree now I'm eager to see what it would look like moving through the landscape as brown always intended so I've come to London to enlist the help of a designer who can turn my plan into three dimensions without lifting a shovel taken your plan yeah into 3D space this is really exciting we've tried to just model some of the male elements to get a sense of the scale and the design and hopefully try and flesh out what it might have looked like and we can turn the camera right round and see the view from the house and see the church wow that's dramatic isn't it with a lake river snaking through Jane was adamant the lake should be River style and that Serpentine shape works really well and there's that view isn't it so that Long View across the narrow length of the site yeah that view reminds me of The Valleys at Milton Abbas as John suggested it's really helpful we could just subtly mold it do you think yeah we can very easily um texture the landscapes no that's good I don't think so I don't think so so I'll move up slightly bring him down he was very subtle and gentle lovely yeah but fine brilliant so I've just rendered that out now whoa to see the landscape brought to life the Reflections in the water are really convincing there's a summer house that's great so from the summer house you would then be away from the house and see a wonderful views obviously across the water this really reminds me of Burley where you come into the back of the summer house what you think is the fun but actually it's the back and then you see out at the front and you see this amazing view of the water and the valley you could never Tire of that view however often you use that summer house [Music] 3D animations really give a sense of how the garden would have looked so exciting to compare the existing landscape with what might have been it is sad that brown never made Fenn Stanton his own masterpiece but I think we have created something that is worthy of being called capability Brands unfinished Garden [Music] thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: When Lucy Met

Views: 47,491

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Id: k3rnhSchQQk

Length: 29min 17sec (1757 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 17 2016