Details
Wiltshire, home to Stonehenge and Avebury, Salisbury Plain and Longleat, is also home to a rich array of gardens. In his tour of historic gardens Timothy Mowl now visits the count of Wiltshire, examining the changes in style, design and fashion from the early medieval period to the 20th century. Beginning with medieval vernacular gardens of the Wiltshire manor house, Mowl traces the evolution of garden design through people like John Aubrey, who created beautiful gardens for beautiful ladies, and Harold Peto who brought a little bit of Tuscany to Wiltshire. Combining detailed descriptions and illustrations of specific examples with more general discussion, the history of Wiltshire's gardens sees formal design give way to cascades, lakes, grottoes and topiary; the pioneering gardens and risk-taking of the 18th century then gave way to minimalism and the stylistic chaos of the 19th century, through to the adventurous gardens of present-day Wiltshire.