Charles Bridgeman
Encyclopedia
Charles Bridgeman was an EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
garden designer in the onset of the naturalistic landscape style. Although he was a key figure in the transition of English garden design from the Anglo-Dutch formality of patterned parterre
Parterre
A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...
s and avenues to a freer style that incorporated formal, structural and wilderness elements, Bridgeman is a somewhat obscure entity in the history of landscape architecture, his reputation eclipsed by those of his successors, William Kent
William Kent
William Kent , born in Bridlington, Yorkshire, was an eminent English architect, landscape architect and furniture designer of the early 18th century.He was baptised as William Cant.-Education:...
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/bio/kent.htm and Lancelot “Capability” Brown
Capability Brown
Lancelot Brown , more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English eighteenth-century artists to be accorded his due", and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure...
(Jellicoe, et al., 1986, p.72).
Little is recorded of the early life of Charles Bridgeman. He was born in 1690 and raised in modest circumstances. His father was a gardener who is reported to have worked at Wimpole in Cambridge for the Earl of Oxford
Earl of Oxford
Earl of Oxford is a dormant title in the Peerage of England, held for several centuries by the de Vere family from 1141 until the death of the 20th earl in 1703. The Veres were also hereditary holders of the office of master or Lord Great Chamberlain from 1133 until the death of the 18th Earl in 1625...
. The younger Bridgeman entered the landscaping profession by working for the Brompton Park Nursery. By 1714 he had begun working with Henry Wise, with whom he later shared the title of Chief Gardener for the royal gardens (Strong, 1992, 39). Bridgeman married Sarah Mist in 1717 http://www.brookmans.com/environment/gobions/ch3.shtml.
An early proponent of a less-structured garden design, Bridgeman was a pioneer in the landscaping trend that spread throughout much of Europe in the 18th century and came to be known as the jardin anglais
Jardin Anglais
The Jardin Anglais is an urban park in Geneva, Switzerland, situated at the location of an ancient harbor and a wood.The park was created in 1855...
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/landscape_gardens.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20071205025130/http://museum.gov.ns.ca/uemp/garden.htm (Jellicoe, et al., 1986, p. 72). A contemporary of Bridgeman’s, Horace Walpole, describing his colleague’s design style in his essay On Modern Gardening, wrote: ‘though he still adhered much to strait walks with high clipt hedges, they were only his great lines; the rest he diversified by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges’ (Amherst, 1896, p. 249). Bridgeman’s approach to landscaping can be summarized in three terms: formal, transitional and progressive. His landscapes displayed formal elements such as parterres, avenues
Avenue (landscape)
__notoc__In landscaping, an avenue or allée is traditionally a straight route with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each, which is used, as its French source venir indicates, to emphasize the "coming to," or arrival at a landscape or architectural feature...
, geometrically shaped lakes and pools, and kitchen gardens. Transitional elements in his designs included lawns, amphitheatres, garden buildings and statues, winding paths through wooded areas to viewing points and the use of ha-has - features are some of the progressive ideas he helped bring into favor (Jellicoe, 1986, p. 72).
Bridgeman made a name for himself among the artisans of the day with his often dramatic redesigns of the estate gardens belonging to wealthy English nobles. He laid out the extravagant garden of Lord Cobham at Stowe
Stowe House
Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house located in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school. The gardens , a significant example of the English Landscape Garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust...
, which compiled temples, pillars, finely carved stone statues, summer houses, and a miniature replica of an Egyptian pyramid (Amherst, 1896, p.251). Bridgeman participated in the design of a garden at Rousham House
Rousham House
Rousham House is a Jacobean country house at Rousham in Oxfordshire, England. The house has been in the ownership of one family since it was built.-History:...
in Oxfordshire that included cascades, fountains, square pools, an outdoor theatre, and a wilderness area that could be viewed from a vantage point within the main garden. Mavis and Lambert (1990, p. 156) wrote of this garden: “at Rousham the views out into the countryside are as important as those in the garden.” Other estate gardens Bridgeman had a hand in planning include Claremont
Claremont Landscape Garden
Claremont Landscape Garden, just outside Esher, Surrey, England, is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout...
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~helphand/englishpgsone/englishpg4.html http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~helphand/englishpgsone/englishpg5.html, Cassiobury Park
Cassiobury Park
Cassiobury Park is the principal public open space in Watford, Hertfordshire, in England. It comprises over and extends from the A412 Rickmansworth Road in the east to the Grand Union Canal in the west....
, Cliveden
Cliveden
Cliveden is an Italianate mansion and estate at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. Set on banks above the River Thames, its grounds slope down to the river. The site has been home to an Earl, two Dukes, a Prince of Wales and the Viscounts Astor....
, Chiswick House
Chiswick House
Chiswick House is a Palladian villa in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in the London Borough of Hounslow in England. Set in , the house was completed in 1729 during the reign of George II and designed by Lord Burlington. William Kent , who took a leading role in designing the gardens, created one of the...
, Richmond http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/heritage/timeline/1700to1772_bridgeman.html, Wimpole Hall and, perhaps most his most renowned work, Stowe http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~helphand/englishpgsone/englishpg6.html http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~rviau/ids/Artworks/bridgeman.html. English essayist and poet Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apope.htm wrote of Bridgeman’s creations at Stowe as being the "work to wonder at" (Batey, et al., 1990, p. 168).
However, Bridgeman perhaps remains best known for his tenure as Royal Gardener for Queen Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
and Prince George of Denmark. He was promoted to this position, which he held for ten years, upon the retirement of his mentor, Henry Wise. As Royal Gardener, Bridgeman tended – and in many cases, redesigned – the royal gardens at Windsor
Windsor, Berkshire
Windsor is an affluent suburban town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is widely known as the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British Royal Family....
, Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace
Kensington Palace is a royal residence set in Kensington Gardens in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has been a residence of the British Royal Family since the 17th century and is the official London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke and...
, Hampton Court, St. James's Park
St. James's Park
St. James's Park is a 23 hectare park in the City of Westminster, central London - the oldest of the Royal Parks of London. The park lies at the southernmost tip of the St. James's area, which was named after a leper hospital dedicated to St. James the Less.- Geographical location :St. James's...
and Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
.