Wentworth Woodhouse - The Park

The Park

Having finished the course of alterations in the hands of John Carr, Lord Fitzwilliam turned in 1790 to the most prominent landscape gardener, Humphry Repton, for whom this was the season's most ambitious project, one that he would describe in detail while the memory was still fresh, in Some Observations of the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803). A terrace centered on the main block effected a transition between the house and the rolling grazing land. Four obelisks stood on the bowling green, dwarfed by the scale of the house; Repton re-sited them. Though the parkland had accumulated numerous eye-catcheres and features (see below), Repton found there were few trees, the house being surrounded by "coarse grass and boulders" which Repton also removed, before the large-scale earth-moving operations began, effected by men with shovels and donkey-carts, to reshape the lumpy ground into smooth swells. Two large pools visible from the East Front and the approach drive, were excavated into a serpentine shape. Some of Flitcroft's and outbuildings were demolished, though not Carr's handsome stable court (1768), entered through a pedimented Tuscan arch. Many trees were planted.