Gardens Near and Far ep. 5 – Blenheim, UK: In 1705, architect John Vanbrugh and gardener Henry Wise designed the garden in Blenheim, in Britain. It symbolised the political and military power of the Duke of Marlborough. Sixty years later, Capability Brown reworked the estate, reshaping the landscape into the image of a romantic painting.
Gardens Near and Far ep. 5 – Blenheim, UK
An eighteenth century house and park with a nineteenth century garden. The palace, designed by Vanbrugh c1705, was the nation’s reward to the first Duke of Marlborough for his victories over Louis XIV. Henry Wise designed the garden, in an Anglo-Dutch Baroque manner with a military cast. It had mock fortifications and regimented parterres. The first Duke died in 1722. During the 1720s his wife, Sarah, canalised the River Glyme and had a triumphal bridge errected. In 1764, the 4th Duke commissioned Lancelot Brown, then at the apogee of his fame.
Brown transformed the park by making the canal into a serpentine lake. He also naturalised the woods, designed a cascade and placed clumps in strategic positions. During the 1930s, the 9th Duke replanted a ‘military’ avenue east of the palace and commissioned Achille Duchêne to design a fine water parterre, west of the palace.
