The Gardens at Stourhead

Henry Hoare, the son of Stourhead's first owner, laid out the gardens for the estate with a series of romantic lakes and temples, including a reconstruction of the Pantheon, inspired by landscape paintings by Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). This was the first example of the "natural" landscape garden in England, later to be taken on by Capability Brown and others. The house, standing in the country as in Tudor days, now was surrounded by a parkland composed of trees carefully trimmed and planted, so as to afford Claudian scenes from the house and from well defined walks in the grounds. The temples and other garden structures, designed by Henry Glitcroft (1697-1769), were based on various classical sources. Since the surrounding land was equally available for pasture, beauty was combined with utility.