lodge park and charles bridgeman, master of 'incomprehensible vastness

The Garden History Society

Lodge Park and Charles Bridgeman, Master of 'Incomprehensible Vastness'Author(s): Nicky SmithSource: Garden History, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Winter, 2006), pp. 236-248Published by: The Garden History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472343 .

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NICKY SMITH

LODGE PARK AND CHARLES BRIDGEMAN, MASTER OF

'INCOMPREHENSIBLE VASTNESS'

Unlike most parks planned by Charles Bridgeman, Lodge Park in Gloucestershire was

never altered by later landscape designers. For this reason it has been regarded as a

'complete' Bridgeman landscape, although no one knew precisely what Bridgeman's

layout would have looked like. Until 1998 his plan for the park lay unrecognized in the

Bodleian Library, Oxford. Following its discovery, it became clear that evidence on the

ground was lacking for some key features of his ambitious design, and questions arose

about whether Bridgeman's vision had become a reality. In 2005 earthworks covering

large areas of the park were analysed by English Heritage. This work revealed that,

despite the determination of its owner, Sir John Dutton, Bridgeman's plan was never

completed. Nevertheless, aspects of Bridgeman's design can be seen in its layout and he

used the park's wide open space and its spectacular natural topography to great effect,

striving for the 'incomprehensible vastness' described by Stephen Switzer as characteristic

of his work.

Lodge Park, Gloucestershire, was one amongst the new generation of deer parks created

during the early seventeenth century. But within a century of its creation, deer hunting had fallen out of favour and its large swathe of land was available, and ideally suitable, for an early eighteenth-century designed landscape. When Charles Bridgeman visited he

looked out across none of the formal gardens and ornate parterres of the greater estates, but 250 acres of open space awaiting improvement.

Two general characteristics of Bridgeman's work endorsed by his contemporaries were his concern for the 'genius loc? and his predisposition for vastness of scale.1

According to Stephen Switzer, Bridgeman believed that 'true greatness consists in Size and

Dimension' and his 'Fancy could not be bounded' in his aim to create 'incomprehensible Vastness'.2 Sir Thomas Thornhill, similarly, in his poem entitled A Hue and Cry (1721), remarks that Bridgeman could 'make water for miles altogether' and 'Mountains that

reach God knows whither'.3 Lodge Park was eminently suitable for such a landscape. As

Horace Walpole put it, 'an open country is but a canvass on which a landscape might be

designed'.4

HISTORY

Lodge Park forms the south-western portion of the Sherborne Estate, bequeathed to the

National Trust by the 7th Lord Sherborne in 1982. The park was created in the 1630s

by John 'Crump' Dutton, a wily, energetic and sociable character who contrived to be

English Heritage, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire SN2 2GZ, UK



LODGE PARK AND CHARLES BRIDGEMAN 237

on both sides of the Civil War at once, and whose memorial in Sherborne Church states

that he was 'Master of a large Fortune and Owner of a Mind Aequall to it'.5 Lodge Park, known initially as 'New Park', was carved out from land that had once been open fields

and common grazing on the edges of four parishes. Its original purpose was as a deer

park for Sherborne House, which lies 3 kilometres away. The park is still famous for its

seventeenth-century deer course, which is probably the best surviving example of its kind

in the country.6 Its fine and ornate lodge overlooking the deer course was built c.1630 as a grandstand from which spectators could view the sport. From its early days the

park was walled and its area was slightly smaller than it is today, but beyond this little is

known about its layout, other than that there may have been some fishponds.

By the early eighteenth century the Sherborne estate had passed to Crump's great

nephew, Sir John Dutton, a 'kind, sensible, retiring man' who was highly cultured and

acquainted with the latest thinking in art, architecture, literature and garden design.7 Estate accounts record his purchases of William Kent's The Designs Oflnigo Jones, Consisting

of Flans and Elevations For Publick and Frivate Buildings ..., 2 vols (London, 1727),

James Gibbs's A Book Of Architecture, Containing Designs of Buildings And Ornaments

(London, 1728), and Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (London, 1727), which was edited

by Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope; and also his visits to fashionable gardens of the

day. Sir John's sound estate management, and two marriages to heiresses, meant he was

soon able to afford improvements to his estate and, although fairly restrained in his

expenditure, he allowed himself the luxury of employing the most eminent designers. At the same time he was acquiring more land and extended the park to the west by at least 50 acres. The park's extension coincided with Sir John's ambitions to create a

landscape park. In 1728 William Kent supplied plans for the refurbishment of his Lodge and the grounds were to be laid out in equally prestigious fashion. The obvious choice for their design was Bridgeman, who had already been connected with Kent through his

work on a number of projects with which Kent had also been involved, e.g. Rousham, Oxfordshire, and Richmond, Surrey.8

CHARLES BRIDGEMAN'S PLAN

Bridgeman visited Sherborne House on at least two occasions, in 1725 and 1729. On 22 December 1729 Sir John's accounts record a payment of 18s. 6d. for 'Expenses at Oxford Fetching Mr Bridgeman to make a plan for my New Park', and on the same day ?70 was paid to 'Mr Bridgeman for his journeys to Shireborn and making a plan for my

New Park'.9 For many years this plan lay unidentified in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Its

discovery in 1998 revealed for the first time what Bridgeman had intended to achieve at

Lodge Park and provided the opportunity to assess what remains of his work there.10 The

plan depicts some features neatly drawn in grey pencil, while later additions have been made on top in black ink. The underlying detail appears to represent the pre-existing

layout of the park with the black ink of Bridgeman's new design superimposed upon it.

Bridgeman clearly advised on a new design for the park's layout following his first visit in 1725, since work on it was underway in this year, but the design must have evolved and been subject to alteration over several years since the plan does not appear to have been completed until 1729 (Figure 1). Sir John presumably had a hand in the new design, and he may have gained inspiration when he visited places such as Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex; Claremont and Oatlands, both Surrey; Windsor Great Park, Berkshire; and Wanstead, Essex (in 1728).



238 GARDEN HISTORY 34 : 2

Figure 1. Scaled design (c.1729) by Charles Bridgeman for Lodge Park, Gloucestershire.

Courtesy: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Gough drawings a4, f.68r

The design is typical of Bridgeman's transitional work, with its combination of formal

and less formal elements. In his use of a main view framed by a wedge-shaped formation

of narrow, regular bands of trees, it bears similarities to his plan for Amesbury, Wiltshire.

This ornamental planting was to be viewed from an intended bastion to the rear of the

Lodge rather than from the Lodge building itself. The valley of the River Leach, which runs through the centre of the park, was to be the focus for a semi-formal serpentine lake

approached by a wide tree-lined Great Avenue. This radiated from the Lodge between

rectangular areas of planting, which were to be cut diagonally by rides leading to focal

points above the lake. Further, rigidly straight avenues were to lead north and south from

the Lodge, while less formal paths and avenues meandered through the wooded areas of

the Park, through gardens behind the Lodge and along the upper contours of the river




valley. A small parterre was also to be laid out on the distant bank of the river. The design was not aligned symmetrically with the Lodge but was centred to respect the park's shape and topography rather than its building.

LODGE PARK TODAY

Today, Lodge Park consists mainly of open pasture land surrounded by a narrow

perimeter woodland belt, but with larger woods at its northern and southern ends. In

1995 an Historic Landscape Restoration Plan was compiled, as part of the Countryside

Stewardship Scheme, and this resulted in planting proposals to re-instate Bridgeman's

layout. Since Bridgeman's plan had not yet been found, these proposals were guided

largely by an estate map of 1820.11 Some key features of Bridgeman's work, notably his

Figure 2. A recent aerial photograph showing the dense concentration of earthwork features to

be found in Lodge Park, Gloucestershire. A straight line of tree root holes representing one of

Charles Bridgeman's avenues can be seen to the left of the Lodge. Courtesy: ? English Heritage NMR 21862/24




Great Avenue and lesser serpentine avenues, were replanted, while hedges and fences were cleared to open up the line of the former deer course. The discovery of Bridgeman's

plan gave the National Trust further evidence upon which to base its reconstruction

work, and it also prompted enquiries to find out how much of his design was ever

realized and what traces of it remain. The Sherborne estate accounts provided some

evidence by giving details of various work carried out.12 Further evidence was contained

in the archaeological remains, in particular the earthworks, which cover large areas of

the park. These earthworks, concentrated in the eastern half of the park, which has never

been subjected to intensive modern ploughing, had not been mapped or studied in detail

(Figure 2). In 2004 English Heritage's Archaeological Survey and Investigation Team was asked

to examine the earthworks and to produce a detailed analytical survey of archaeological features throughout the park. The general purpose of the survey was to map the earthwork

features and to provide an interpretative record for site management and presentation, as

well as to inform future restoration work. More specifically, the survey aimed to assess

whether the earthwork features related to Bridgeman's design, or to other periods of

history or prehistory, and to consider to what extent Bridgeman's plans for the park were

ever achieved.13

THE EARTHWORKS

One of the most prominent earthwork features within Lodge Park is the 'Canal' (Figure 3). This is an elongated, embanked pool 250 metres long and 15 metres wide. It is flat

bottomed, still up to 1.7 metres deep, and has a substantial dam about 1 metre high above

ground level. It is no longer completely watertight but, at the time of the survey, shallow

water lay behind its dam and the rest of the pond was boggy. Bridgeman's own plan and

nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey maps show that this pond was once connected to

the river at its northern end. Today, this is no longer the case and the river bypasses it via

a straight channel running parallel with it, separated by a bank, possibly a walkway. It seems most probable that the Canal predates Bridgeman's documented visits to

Lodge Park. He shows it as underlying detail on his plan and his intention appears to

have been for it to be superseded by a large, semi-formal serpentine lake. A documentary

reference, of September 1728, to a furlong crossing Aldsworth way 'upon the canal'

indicates that the Canal already existed by the time his plan was completed.14 Perhaps more significant is the absence of any mention of its construction in the Dutton family

accounts, which survive for 1708-11 and 1723-42 and would have surely mentioned such

a large and costly undertaking. Despite this, as an earthwork feature it is very difficult

to explain in anything other than an eighteenth-century designed landscape context. It

bears no resemblance to medieval fish ponds and no purely functional use would have

warranted such an elaborate and formal construction. In fact, it is the formality of the

Canal that identifies it as a designed landscape feature rather than an agricultural or

pastoral piece of infrastructure. Before the eighteenth century, although canals existed in

gardens, they were usually part of more formal layouts than the example at Lodge Park.

After the turn of the eighteenth century, Bridgeman used canals in formal and semi-formal

designs, as seen by his work at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, and Gobions, Hertfordshire.15

They also appear in the work of other early eighteenth-century landscape designers such

as Switzer, who was paid the enormous sum of ?1392 4s. 9d. by the Earl of Cadogan for

work at Caversham, Berkshire, which included creating parterres, terraces, and digging




Figure 3. The 'Canal' at Lodge Park, Gloucestershire, an earthwork that predates Charles Bridgeman's design of c.1729. Photo: author

canals and fishponds.16 The Canal at Lodge Park may well have been created sometime

during the early eighteenth century, perhaps between 1711 and 1723, years for which

the Dutton family accounts are absent. Its designer is unknown, and it is plausible that

Bridgeman had made earlier, undocumented, visits to give advice on the park's layout and that he changed his mind about his design, altering the Canal to the serpentine lake

sometime during the late 1720s.

The serpentine lake Bridgeman planned to replace the Canal with is also typical of his

transitional style, showing his departure from the straight lines and rigid plans of earlier

designs, yet without the more naturalistic approach adopted by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown and his successors. Work probably began on it shortly after Bridgeman's first visit

when, in 1725, holes were made 'to try ye ground above ye ponds ... for Mr Bridgeman ... in order to raise a head for ye water'.17 The results of the test holes are not known, but

further attempts at boring were made in 1731 'in order to try how ye clay lay in order to

find whether Mr Bridgeman's lake be feasible there'.18 However, work on the lake appears never to have progressed beyond this planning stage. Field evidence for the lake is absent. To retain such a large expanse of water would have required a particularly massive

retaining dam, of which there is no trace to be seen. There are a few earthwork scarps

following the lower valley slopes alongside the river, which have a layout suggestive of

the lake's serpentine-shaped sides, but this is fortuitous. They represent the old course of

the river before it was diverted into a straight channel sometime before Bridgeman drew

up his plan. The estate accounts corroborate the field evidence, making no mention of




the construction of a lake. Bridgeman's serpentine must have thus proved impractical and was abandoned either because the underlying geology was unsuitable for its construction or because it proved too expensive.

Despite the apparent problem with Bridgeman's lake, his planting scheme for the

park was soon underway, and trees were bought on the extravagant scale typical of

Bridgeman. In 1729, 1050 holly sets were ordered for Lodge Park. Between 1724 and 1729 many more trees were bought to Sherborne by Dutton, including one hundred

flowering trees, 19,200 ash sets, seven thousand elms, seven hundred wych elms, fifty yew sets and six thousand Scots firs. In 1735-36 at least 4600 holes were also dug for trees,

probably mainly in plantations enclosed in new hawthorn hedges in Lodge Park.19 By the 1720s and 1730s the technique of transplanting large trees was well understood and used to provide instant effects, so it may have been used for some of the trees at Lodge Park.

Indeed, there are specific references in the estate accounts to the sums of ?16 10s. and ?5 14s. paid for eight hundred 'large' ashes and eight-five 'large' elms, respectively.20

The archaeological survey looked at the areas of historic planting. Mature trees

within open areas of the park were mapped, as were root holes representing the sites

of large trees. Some very faint alignments of tree holes and areas of ground disturbance

caused by roots were not distinguishable on the ground, but they were identified using recent aerial photographs taken by English Heritage (Figure 2). The results demonstrated

that all Bridgeman's great lines, his formal avenues through the open parkland, were

created. Each had a single line of trees along either side. His rigidly straight Great

Avenue swept across the park's upland plateau and the full grandeur of the valley below

could be observed from his contour-following serpentine avenues leading from it. The

Great Avenue (documented in 1737, replanted by the National Trust in 1995) and the

serpentine avenues leading from its ends can still be traced as double linear arrangements of tree root holes, while the tree root holes of Bridgeman's straight avenues close to the

Lodge also survive. Cultivation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries destroyed all traces of his avenues in the western half of the park.

Away from the avenues, ground evidence for Bridgeman's rectilinear planting blocks

is lacking. Small groups of tree holes on the plateau to the west of the Lodge, and in the

quarried areas, represent the position of tree clumps and ornamental planting. Some of

these tree clumps were probably designed to hide the scars of old quarries, a practice

employed elsewhere, for example at Great Melton, Norfolk, where beech trees were

planted to mask old marl pits.21 On the western side of the park the planting scheme

bore a close resemblance to that depicted in Bridgeman's design until as recently as the

twentieth century, when it was blocked in by conifer plantations. Even today, the outside

edge of the woodland belt corresponds broadly with Bridgeman's design, although its

inside edge has been lost by the spread of hawthorn throughout the woods.

One drawback of the highly formal gardens favoured in the seventeenth century had

been that they were extremely costly to create and maintain. Switzer, in his Ichnographia

Rustica, Or the Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardener's Recreation, 3 vols (London,

1718), was one of the first writers to emphasize that landowners should have an eye to

frugal and efficient management, which meant confining formal gardens to areas smaller

than 20 acres, while allowing the outer parts of a designed landscape to encompass

hundreds of acres. Henrietta Howard indicated that Bridgeman's gardens at Amesbury were 'kept

as they ought or be, and at a very reasonable expense'.22 Estate owners of

more moderate means, such as the Dutton family, were now able to create prestigious




designed landscapes with the result that the new fashion created somewhat of a boom.

One contemporary commentator noted that:

Every Man now, be his fortune what it will, is to be doing something at his Place ...

and you hardly meet with any Body, who, after the first Compliments, does not inform

you, that he is in Mortar and moving of Earth, the modest terms for Building and

Gardening.23

Although by no means poor, the Dutton family were lesser landowners and Lodge Park was an outlier to their main seat at Sherborne House, which had its own Home Park to be maintained. Sir John's father, Ralph Dutton, had neglected his estate and Sir John inherited large debts. It was only by sound management of his affairs and by his two

advantageous marriages that he was able to afford improvements to the estate.

Large-scale earthmoving often incurred the greatest expense in the creation of

eighteenth-century designed landscapes. The extent to which earthmoving was used to enhance the contours of the designed landscape at Lodge Park was a question the

earthwork survey sought to address. A spectacular bowl shape within the valley slope above the River Leach lies close to the Canal (Figure 4). Its unusually regular appearance

suggested that it may have been artificially modelled. On close examination, earthworks of field boundaries and very faint traces of, probably medieval, ridge-and-furrow can

be seen running up and down its steep slopes. A wider search of the local topography found similarly shaped bowls occurring naturally at bends in the river's ancient course.

Again documentary sources confirm the field evidence. The feature is not shown on

Bridgeman's plan and its creation is not mentioned in the estate accounts. It also differs from constructions such as Bridgeman's grass amphitheatre at Claremont, Surrey. This sub-circular arrangement of turf steps, laid out in the 1720s overlooking a round pond,

was highly formal in contrast to the more naturalistic form seen in Lodge Park.24 It therefore appears that earth-moving was very limited in Lodge Park, being restricted to

the construction of a terrace behind the Lodge, which has since been levelled. Although Bridgeman may not have artificially created the hillside bowl, he was adept at using existing landforms to great effect, and this stunning natural feature would not have escaped his

notice. On his design for the park a small gate leads into his northern serpentine avenue and this would have been a good point for an eye-catching entry to the park, confronted

with the full grandeur of the valley, the Canal and the river below. As a pioneer in the use of the ha-ha, Bridgeman opened up views across distant

parkland, making grounds seem more extensive and impressive. The ha-ha at Lodge Park was constructed in 1735, when labourers were paid the sum of ?24 10s. for digging 'half of the fosses behind the Lodge at New Park for ye sunk fences'.25 It separated the

garden, a wooded area with serpentine walks, from the wider parkland.26 Today the ha ha consists of a flat-bottomed ditch, about 1 metre deep and 7-8 metres wide. In plan it has a central face with two arms running back from its northern and southern ends. The elaborate central projecting platform or viewing 'bastion' shown in Bridgeman's design is not evident on the ground today, but there is a slight central projection. A broad bank, shown as a fence or wall on his plan, leads from its northern end towards the Lodge's forecourt. The alignment of the ha-ha, like Bridgeman's entire design for the park, has no

regard to the orientation of the Lodge or the views from it. This was probably dictated by the nature of the topography. The Lodge stands on a level plateau and had been built to




Figure 4. The spectacular natural bowl-shaped hillside overlooks the Canal at Lodge Park, Gloucestershire, but does not share its alignment. Courtesy: ? English Heritage NMR

21470/19

command views of the deer course to its east rather than the wider expanse of parkland on its western side. The majority of the park, particularly the river and its deep valley, cannot be seen from the Lodge, while the wooded garden to its rear would have restricted views from the building even further.

Amongst this vast planting scheme and the dramatic open topography of Lodge Park, Bridgeman had planned to dot 'agreeable and proper objects' to act as focal points

throughout his design. Sight lines were contrived from the viewing platform behind the

Lodge, through his intended tree blocks, to distant features such as the small parterre, cascade, and pond at the northern and southern ends of his serpentine lake and also towards a statue or other object forming a centrepiece to his symmetrical planting on the far hill slope. Further objects or statues were to be placed along the lines of his serpentine avenues. The survey found evidence for some of these focal features (Figure 5). An eye



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Figure 5. Archaeological earthwork survey of

Lodge

Park, Gloucestershire. Drawing: D. Cunliffe




catcher was probably situated at the end of the Great Avenue. Here a bulge at the junction between two earthwork banks lies in the place of 'Platform A, an octagonal platform

obviously designed to be a prominent landmark since Bridgeman stipulates in a side note

on his plan that it is to be raised by 10 feet. This could have been the 'Peer at Park' which was raised in 1737.27 A further sub-circular platform was found in a less prominent

position, terraced into the valley side, overlooking the river at the southern end of the

park. This lies in the position on Bridgeman's plan where a statue or some other object stands at the tip of a diamond-shaped arrangement of paths at the south-eastern end of

his lake. It may have been a platform from which to view water features in the valley below from the serpentine avenue upon which it lay. No earthwork traces of Bridgeman's other focal features were identified on the ground, but the site of his intended parterre now lies under dense scrub and so it was not possible examine this in detail.

Of course, the history and indeed the prehistory of Lodge Park did not begin and end

with Bridgeman, and the archaeological survey discovered a large number of earthworks

that predate the park and probably owe their survival to its creation. These include a

superb Neolithic long barrow described by O. G. S. Crawford as 'the finest long barrow

I have ever seen'.28 A large-scale survey of this feature was carried out and it formed the

subject of a detailed report.29 The long barrow is surrounded by a layout of medieval

and earlier fields with ridge-and-furrow ploughing, relics of the pre-enclosure landscape of small irregular fields. The deer course and several of the relict boundaries within the

park share the alignment of extensive prehistoric fields recorded in neighbouring parishes and so may well be prehistoric in origin. Parish and field boundaries also survive as

earthworks inside the park, indicating that they predate the early medieval parish layout. All these features survive as an island in contrast to the area around Lodge Park which

is characterized by the rigidly straight boundaries resulting from eighteenth-century

parliamentary enclosure.

Since Bridgeman was keen to incorporate antiquities within his designs these remains

are relevant to his work. He may have 'improved' the appearance of the long barrow by

rearranging its capstone and orthostats. He may also have planted it with trees since a

tree clump appears in its place on his plan and several large tree holes can be seen on its

mound today.30 His interest in antiquities and their incorporation into his schemes is seen

elsewhere. At Eastbury, Dorset, he designed an avenue of tree-clumps on mounds that

appear like barrows, while at Amesbury, Wiltshire, Vespasian's Camp Iron Age hill fort,

together with the barrow it encloses, was built into his design as the high point to which

one climbed via a series of grass ramps.31 The possible social and political significance of

the reuse of ancient monuments in mid-eighteenth century parks has been a subject for

discussion by previous writers.32

THE LATER YEARS

Bridgeman's involvement at Lodge Park was probably over soon after 1729. By the mid

17308 his health was failing and dropsy incapacitated him from all but the lightest and

least demanding work.33 Sir John Dutton was still determined that Bridgeman's design would be completed, and when he died, in 1743, his will instructed his heirs to:

finish and perfect the plantations I have begun in my New Park and all the other works I

intended there pursuant to a plan made by Mr Charles Bridgeman for the purpose which

plan I desire to be strictly pursued excepting only in those particulars which I shall direct




to be varied from in a paper in my own handwriting which I shall leave enclosed with this my will.34

Unfortunately, it is not known what variations to Bridgeman's scheme were sanctioned

by Sir John because this paper has never been found, but further work was evidently

done, since, in 1753, his successor, James Lennox Dutton, paid the sum of ?50 for the

park to be finished. However, this is a trifling amount, little more than the sum that had

been spent on digging the ha-ha alone, so James Lennox does not appear to have shared

Sir John's enthusiasm for the scheme.

Although Bridgeman's design may not have been completed, few changes were made

to alter what he had already achieved at Lodge Park. James Lennox and his successors

concentrated their improvements in the area around Sherborne House and its Home Park,

leaving Lodge Park undisturbed until the later nineteenth century. At this time the area

around the Lodge was remodelled, but the rest of the Park was left relatively untouched,

apart from the installation of a hydraulic ram in the valley bottom. During the twentieth

century ploughing destroyed the vast majority of earthworks on the western side of the

park, along with areas of Bridgeman's planting, which had survived until at least 1881, as shown on the Ordnance Survey 1st edition County Series map.

CONCLUSIONS

By comparing and contrasting Bridgeman's plan for Lodge Park and contemporary estate records with what survives on the ground, the archaeological earthwork survey demonstrated that a good deal of Bridgeman's design of 1729 was created and that he used the natural topography to great effect without incurring the expense of extensive earth

moving. The earthwork remains within the park were identified, interpreted, and mapped in detail for management and preservation purposes. The results will be incorporated into the National Trust's Conservation Plan for the park, which is in the process of being drawn up, and should provide information for future restoration schemes. Perhaps the

most important result of the survey has been to draw attention to the fact that Lodge Park is not a complete 'Bridgeman' landscape, but one containing a wealth of archaeological earthwork features with a wide time span ranging from the Neolithic period to recent

times, of which Bridgeman's work, nevertheless, forms an important part. The fact that

Bridgeman's design was never completed poses an interesting dilemma in terms of its

presentation. Although it would not be authentic to create the full Bridgeman layout, many aspects of it can be restored and its pre-Bridgeman remains give the parkland a wider archaeological value.

Whether exploring the 'genius loci' or expressing his extravagant way of thinking, Bridgeman produced designs that encompassed the formal, the transitional, and the

progressive. At Lodge Park examples of all these aspects to his work were planned, although some were never realized. Lodge Park demonstrates a combination of the formal Grand Avenue replanted by the National Trust and a parterre which may never have been realized; the transitional semi-formal lake, which was attempted but proved unfeasible; and the progressive, as exemplified by the ha-ha that opened up the view from the terrace he created behind the Lodge. His use of the ha-ha to open up the vista to the wider landscape, his use of the dramatic topography of the river valley, and the sheer scale of his planting scheme demonstrate Bridgeman's aim for impressive size and

'incomprehensible vastness' at Lodge Park.




REFERENCES

1 Peter Willis, Charles Bridgeman and

the English Landscape Garden, revd edn

(Newcastle upon Tyne: Elysium, 2002), p. 130. 2

Ibid., p. 131, n.2. 3

Ibid., p. 131. 4

Ibid., p. 9. 5

Katie Fretwell, 'Sherborne and Lodge Parks, park and garden survey'. Unpublished Report (London: National Trust, 1990; revd

2005), p. 6. 6

Christopher Taylor, 'Ravensdale Park,

Derbyshire, and medieval deer coursing',

Landscape History, 26 (2004), p. 46. 7

Fretwell, 'Sherborne and Lodge Parks',

p.9. 8 Willis, Charles Bridgeman, pp. 66, 102. 9


p.48. 10 Bodleian Library, University of Oxford,

MS Gough drawings a4, f.68r. 11

Sherborne Estate Map c.1820; Gloucestershire County Record Office (CRO), 4930 Map 9.

12 These have been studied by Fretwell,

'Sherborne and Lodge Parks', pp. 43-53. 13

The English Heritage Survey, at 1:1000

and 1:2500 scales, took place between January and May 2005. It was carried out using a

Trimble 5600 Total Station Theodolite and

a Trimble 5700 Global Positioning System.

Heavily wooded areas were surveyed using a combination of a Trimble GeoXT GPS

and graphical survey techniques. The data

were processed with Geosite Office, Trimble

Geomatics, Key Terra Firma and FastMap software.

14 Deed dated 29 September 1728 by John

Howes surrendering 1 acre of arable to Sir

John Dutton; Gloucestershire CRO, D678/1

Tl/11/50. 15

Hazel Riley, Stowe Park, Stowe,

Buckinghamshire. Archaeological Investigation Series Report No. AI/21/2001 (London, English

Heritage, 2001), p. 14.

16 Tom Williamson, Polite Landscape:

Gardens & Society in Eighteenth-Century

England (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995), p. 41. 17


p.46. 18 Ibid., p. 49.

19 Ibid., p. 12.

20 Ibid., p. 46.

21 Tom Williamson, The Archaeology of the

Landscape Park: Garden Design in Norfolk,

England, cl680-1840. British Archaeological

Report No. 268 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1998),

p. 263. 22

Willis, Charles Bridgeman, p. 129. 23

Common Sense Journal (1739); quotation in Willis, Charles Bridgeman, p. 10.

24 Bridgeman's plans are reproduced in

Willis, Charles Bridgeman, pis 32a, b. 25


p. 50. 26

Ibid., p. 12. 27

Ibid., p. 51. 28

O. G. S. Crawford, The Long Barrows of the Cotswolds (Gloucester: J. Bellows, 1925),

p. 112. 29

Susan Westlake, 'Lodge Park long barrow

survey report'. Unpublished Report (London:

English Heritage, 2005). 30

Nicky Smith, Lodge Park, Gloucestershire. Archaeological Investigation Series Report No. AI/21/2005 (London: English

Heritage, 2005), pp. 12-13. 31

Kate Felus, personal communication. 32

In particular, see Mark Bowden, 'The

conscious conversion of earlier earthworks

in the design of parks and gardens', in There

by Design: Field Archaeology in Parks and

Gardens, edited by Paul Pattison. British

Archaeological Report No. 267 (Oxford:

Archaeopress, 1998), pp. 23-6. 33

Willis, Charles Bridgeman, p. 123. 34 Will of Sir John Dutton dated 30 March

1742; Gloucestershire CRO, D678/F2/23.



lodge park and charles bridgeman, master of 'incomprehensible vastness

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