Gentlemen And Players: Gardeners Of The English Landscape

Timothy Mowl

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Review

The English landscape garden in the eighteenth century is considered to be one of the highlights of our cultural heritage and this book is an attempt to do justice to the upper classes in assessing the relative contributions of the patrons - the “Gentlemen” - and the professional gardeners - the “Players” - to the shaping of the Arcadian parks of the era.

After a brief sojourn in the 20th century with Stylistic Cold Wars: Pevsner Versus Betjeman author Timothy Mowl returns to more familiar terrain and with enlightenment from previous biographies on Horace Walpole hbk £19.99 and William Beckford he conducts a lively debate around his premise that with a few notable exceptions, luminaries such as Inigo Jones, ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton, were no more than “competent professionals and blinkered conformists”, whereas the aristocratic Lords Burlington and Cobham and their ilk were the mould-breakers and the inspiration in the collaborations to evoke the mythical perfection of classical Greece.

One does not have to agree with all of the author’s theories to enjoy this sparkling book.  I enjoyed very much wandering through Painswick, Stourhead, Painshill and the like, in the company of the most celebrated couplings of horticulture and meeting new faces such as Samuel Hartlib and John Beale.  A real treat. - review by Stewart Grimshaw