Ferme ornée
Encyclopedia
Stephen Switzer
Stephen Switzer was a garden designer and writer on garden subjects, an early exponent of the English landscape garden who admired and emulated the formal grandeur of French broad prospects and woodland avenues, finding in the state of horticulture an index of cultural health, in Augustan Rome as...
's term for 'ornamented farm'. It describes a country estate laid out partly according to aesthetic principles and partly for farming. During the eighteenth century the original ferme ornée was Woburn Farm, made by Philip Southcote
Philip Southcote
Philip Southcote created an early example of the English landscape garden at Woburn Farm, near Addlestone, Surrey. It was the original ferme ornée , a term invented by Stephen Switzer in 1741 ....
, who bought the property in 1734. William Shenstone
William Shenstone
William Shenstone was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, The Leasowes.-Life:...
's garden at The Leasowes
The Leasowes
The Leasowes is a 57 hectare estate in Halesowen, historically in the county of Shropshire, England, comprising house and gardens....
was also a ferme ornée. Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
made a later example at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
in the form of le Petit hameau
Petit hameau
The Hameau de la Reine |Hamlet]]) is a rustic retreat in the park of the Château de Versailles built for Marie Antoinette between 1785 and 1792 near the Petit Trianon in the Yvelines, France...
, created between 1783-87, but it was much more for pleasure than for food production. The Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm
Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm
The Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, also known as the English Grounds of Wörlitz, is one of the first and largest English parks in Germany and continental Europe...
was said to be the largest 'ferme ornée' in 18th-century Europe. The most complete surviving example is said to be Larchill
Larchill
Larchill, one of Ireland's most important gardens, is the most complete surviving Ferme ornée in Europe and the site of multiple follies. The main component of Larchill Demesne, it was created in the mid-18th century, and restored from the mid-1990s...
near Kilcock
Kilcock
Kilcock or Killcock is a town and townland in the north of County Kildare, Ireland, on the border with County Meath. Kilcock is a dormitory town for many of those who work in Dublin...
, Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
.
Stephen Switzer, in The Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardener's Recreation (1715), describes the practice of the ferme ornée "By mixing the useful and profitable parts of Gard'ning with the Pleasurable in the Interior Parts of my Designs and Paddocks, obscure enclosures, etc. in the outward, My Designs are thereby vastly enlarg'd and both Profit and Pleasure may be agreeably mix'd together". His English readers would detect, in the juxtaposition of useful and pleasurable, the classical view of the twin aims of poetry, inherited from Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, "to instruct and to delight".
Cultural background and spirituality
The 'Ferme Ornée' gardens of the 18th century were an expression in landscape gardening of the Romantic movementRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. Emulating Arcadia
Arcadia (utopia)
Arcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an...
, a pastoral paradise was created to reflect Man's harmony with the perfection of nature. A working farm, domestic animals and the natural landscape were ornamented by allusions to Arcadia: follies and grottoes, statuary and classical texts were combined with serpentine avenued walks, flowing water and lakes, areas of light and shade, special planting and inspirational framed views. Freed from the restrictions of the 17th century formal garden, the 'Ferme Ornée' was the first move towards the Brownian
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...
landscape parkland.
The functioning aspect of the ferme ornée was not easily kept from being sidelined by its picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
aspects, as happened at Marie Antoinette's artificial "Hameau" at Versailles, where no commercial farming was carried on.
Annick Lodge Estate, built by Captain Montgomerie, the brother of the Earl of Eglinton
Earl of Eglinton
Earl of Eglinton is a title in the Peerage of Scotland.Some authorities spell the title: Earl of Eglintoun In 1859 the thirteenth Earl of Eglinton, Archibald Montgomerie, was also created Earl of Winton in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which gave him an automatic seat in the House of Lords,...
, was described by John Stoddart in 1800 as "a complete specimen of the English Ferme Ornee." In the nearby Eglinton Estate, Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
is also an example of the principles of Ferme Ornee: "Near to the gardens, in a remote corner, more than half encircled by the river, a remarkably handsome cottage has been reared, and furnished, under the direction of Lady Jean Montgomery (Countess of Eglinton), who has contrived to unite neatness and simplicity, with great taste, in the construction of this enchanting hut. That amiable lady, spends occasionally, some part of her leisure hours, about this delightful cottage: viewing the beauties, and contemplating the operations of nature, in the foliage of leaves, blowing of flowers, and maturation of fruits; with other rational entertainments, which her enlightened mind is capable of enjoying."
Period Examples of the Ferme Ornee
- Woburn Farm, Surrey, created by Philip SouthcotePhilip SouthcotePhilip Southcote created an early example of the English landscape garden at Woburn Farm, near Addlestone, Surrey. It was the original ferme ornée , a term invented by Stephen Switzer in 1741 ....
(d.1758). - The LeasowesThe LeasowesThe Leasowes is a 57 hectare estate in Halesowen, historically in the county of Shropshire, England, comprising house and gardens....
, Shropshire, created by the poet William ShenstoneWilliam ShenstoneWilliam Shenstone was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, The Leasowes.-Life:...
(d.1763). - Barrells HallBarrells HallBarrells Hall is a small stately home in the Warwickshire countyside near Henley-in-Arden. The nearest village is Ullenhall, which for many years was the estate village, large parts of it having been built by the owners of Barrells Hall, the Newtons of Glencripesdale Estate...
, Warks. Created by Henrietta, Lady LuxboroughRobert Knight, 1st Earl of CatherloughRobert Knight, 1st Earl of Catherlough, KB, , was a Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby , Castle Rising, Norfolk and Milborne Port, Somerset . He...
(d.1756).