2016 marks the 300th anniversary of celebrated landscape gardener, Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Blenheim Palace is the best place to see the extraordinary vision and work of 'Capability' Brown in their 2000 acres of landscaped parkland, which the gardener spent 11 years creating. It was his approach to present a landscape that appeared natural but was in fact 'nature contrived' that helped the Palace gain World Heritage Site status in 1987. The landscape setting he devised in the 1760's provided such a sublime form of beauty and harmony that every generation of the Marlborough family has endeavoured to preserve it.
Lord Randolph Churchill dubbed the 'Capability' Brown landscape at Blenheim Palace as “The finest view in England”. Many landscape historians also state that the landscaping at Blenheim Palace is the finest example of Brown's work.
The 2,000 acre park delivers beauty across all seasons; from lawns brimming with daffodils in spring, greens of the trees transforming into a myriad of warm tones from summer to autumn, to the twinkling blanket of frost and mist rising from the lake in winter.
Brown's style derived from the two practical principles of comfort and elegance. On the one hand there was a determination that everything should work, and that a landscape should provide for every need of the great house. On the other his landscapes had to cohere and look elegant.
While his designs have great variety, they also appear seamless, owing to his use of the sunk fence or 'ha-ha' to confuse the eye into believing that different pieces of parkland, though managed and stocked quite differently, were one. His expansive lakes, at different levels and apparently unconnected, formed a single body of water as if a river through the landscape, that like the parkland itself, ran on indefinitely.
Blenheim Palace has an exciting calendar of activity planned to celebrate the work of 'Capability' Brown in 2016, from specialist garden tours, a new temporary exhibition, self-guided trail and guided walks.
Opening in February 2016 is a new temporary exhibition that will share 'Capability' Brown's work at Blenheim Palace across the 11 years he was commissioned (1763 – 1774) through detailed accounts of how he designed and executed such a masterpiece through photography, drawings, equipment and costumes with a selection of never-been-displayed-before elements, including Brown's master plan.
There will be key vistas marked out at Blenheim Palace in 2016 in the 'Capability' Brown trail, to allow visitors to see the best examples of Brown's designs around the Parkland.
