It is tempting to say that it is the water which marks out Brown’s landscapes from others. In fact, something much more subtle was of equal importance: the key to his landscapes is the levelling work he did and this is what makes them instantly recognisable. It had great impact on the house, but also on the lake, as the smooth, uncluttered banks emphasised the visual qualities of the water. Contracts at Bowood and Longleat show that Brown did a great deal of levelling of land sloping down to the lakes he created, as well as in other parts of the park. This had great impact: it changed the landscape near the house from a bitty, compartmentalised area into a homogeneous area, integrally linked with the park, and usually a lake. This simplification of the landscape had the effect of making both the house and the lake very prominent. He moved all the extraneous ‘offices’, kitchen gardens and stables away from the house, to leave it uncluttered, and did extensive earth-moving to make the land around it look as though it was completely natural and undisturbed. It was a vast change. Exactly how he did this can be seen in his contracts of 1757 and 1758 with Viscount Weymouth at Longleat. As well as altering the sharp turns of the ‘serpentine Water’ (the serpentine canal adjacent to the east front of the house), Brown was
To lay the two Canals next the serpentine Water into one, and to lower the Surface of them so much as to make the Surface of them have a natural, correspondent, Level, with the Ground on each Side of it
and:
To begin at the Hall Door and to give a proper Levell to the Ground from it to High Wood, through where the Mill stood and from High Wood down to the Water which was altered last year.99
This is part of what he achieved:
Fig. 3.46. Longleat, Wiltshire: High Wood is c. 50m behind the viewer; the hall door is just up the steps.
Fig. 3.47. Longleat: the hall door and steps are just out of sight to the left of the picture. The angle of slope is c. 5.5˚.
The profile Brown created with his earth moving and levelling can be seen behind the right-hand fountain, where the viewer is looking across the ‘two Canals’ mentioned above. The angle of the slope is c. 5.5˚. As intended, he has created a ‘natural, correspondent level’ between the ponds and the surrounding
ground. Almost exactly the same angle of gradient (c. 6.5˚) can be seen in the landscaping around the chain of fishponds which Brown created adjacent to his new kitchen garden, 900m from the house. It must be stressed that this is not a scientific way of measuring angles but a subjective way of comparing what the slopes look like. This work is also mentioned in the contract. A similar gradient can be seen at Bowood, where the angle of slopes varies from c. 6.5˚ – 7.5˚. Fig. 3.50 shows the ‘lawn’ dropping down from the house to the lake, and the extensive drains put in by Brown. His contract with the Earl of Shelburne, dated 10th August, 1762, makes clear how carefully graded these slopes were:
To Level, Drain, alter, Plant, and sow with Grass seeds all the Ground on the South Front, down to the Water.100
Figs. 3.48 and 3.49 Brown’s fishponds at Longleat.
Fig. 3.50. Bowood, Wiltshire, from the east side of the lake.
Again, the contract is quite specific:
To level all the Ground between the Kitchen Garden [immediately north of the house] and the Water, and also to Drain, plant, and sow with Grass seeds all such Parts as shall be thought Necessary to be in Grass making the Whole compleat.101
This is exactly what can be seen in Fig. 3.51: the gently graded grass sloping down from behind the walled kitchen garden to the water. The 6th Article in the
contract deals with the opposite side of the lake, from the dam southwards, which was also to be levelled. Planting was to be done (grass?), trees and bushes were to be removed “as shall be thought proper” and a sandy walk made along the length to connect across the dam with the one coming from the house, “in the best Direction for Shade and Prospect”. This walk was significant as it provided views back to the house across the water, as Figs. 3.50 and 3.51 show.
This ‘uncluttering’ of the landscape and extensive levelling work was an aspect of Brown’s design present in his early work, as his contract at Petworth, with the Earl of Egremont in 1753, shows:
To reduce the Terraces & shorten them: so as to give the Ground on which they stand a natural Form, making it correspond properly with the Park & Level on Front of the House.102
This is one of the clearest, direct references to Brown removing residual formal elements around the house. Although this was not always the case in the 1750s103, he did often succeed in persuading owners to accept his minimalist
alternative, as at Trentham, Staffordshire.104 Why he was so successful at doing
so is an interesting question. Probably, it was a reflection of how influential his patron, Cobham, was on the formation of ‘taste’ in landscape making. Stowe had been a landscape about moral improvement, which the Patriots such as Cobham and Dormer favoured, almost incidentally shaped in an ‘arcadian’ form. Brown’s landscapes, however, were about personal responses. His designs took the concept of a sylvan landscape and developed it in a completely new direction.
The aim was to create something of beauty for its own sake, not for its message. To this end, he manicured the land around significant features such as the house and lake, and presented the house rather like a jewel on a velvet bed, ideally viewed across water.
Another innovatory aspect of Brown’s ‘lawns’ was his use of Dutch Clover (Trifolium repens) as well as grass seed in the mixture. This had two important advantages. The clover remained green throughout the winter105,
tolerating frost well, making the lawns attractive even in winter, and they considerably enhanced the nutritious value of the lawns if the owner wanted to graze them. This would have applied to the area on either side of the pools at Longleat that Brown made (Fig. 3.46) for example. Other advantages of this white clover, with its smaller leaves than forage varieties, were its ability to spread quickly and its low habit of growth, making it a good choice for a lawn.106
As far as is known, Brown was the first person to do this in a designed landscape.107 This three pronged approach – levelling, draining, grass planting –
formed the bones of a Brown landscape from the beginning. These items appear in contract after contract, which is why Brown’s landscapes are so recognisable, and may well be why many have been allowed to endure for so long.