Wrest Park Gardens

Wrest Park is a country

Rural

Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

estate

Estate (house)

An estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. It is the modern term for a manor, but lacks the latter's now abolished jurisdictional authority...

located near Silsoe

Silsoe

Silsoe is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England.-Origin:The village name is derived from the Danish word ‘hoh’, in "Sifels hoh", meaning "Sifel’s hill". The Danes were thought to have been the earliest settlers here...

, Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, England. It comprises Wrest Park, a Grade I listed country house

English country house

The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...

, and Wrest Park Gardens, also Grade I listed, formal gardens surrounding the mansion

Mansion

A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...

. Wrest Park was the location for the music video accompanying the Number 1 single The Fear by singer Lily Allen

Lily Allen

Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...

Wrest Park

Thomas Carew

Thomas Carew was an English poet, among the 'Cavalier' group of Caroline poets.-Biography:He was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, master in chancery, and his wife, Alice daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of the City of London and widow of Ingpen...

(1595–1640) wrote his country house poem

Country house poems

A country house poem is a poem in which the author compliments a wealthy patron or a friend through a description of his country house. Such poems were popular in early 17th century England...

'To My Friend G.N. from Wrest' in 1639 that described the old house which was demolished between 1834 and 1840.

The present house was built in 1834-39, to designs by its owner the Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, an amateur architect, the first president of the Royal Institute of British Architects

Royal Institute of British Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

, who was inspired by buildings he had seen on trips to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and based his house on designs published in French architectural books such as Jacques-François Blondel's

Jacques-François Blondel

Jacques-François Blondel was a French architect. He was the grandson of François Blondel , whose course of architecture had appeared in four volumes in 1683 -Biography:...

Architecture Française (1752); the works were superintended as clerk of works on site by James Clephan, who had been clerk of the works at the Liddell seat, Ravensworth Castle, County Durham, and had recently performed as professional amanuensis and builder for Lord Barrington

Viscount Barrington

Viscount Barrington, of Ardglass in the County of Down, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1720 for the lawyer, theologian and politician John Barrington. He was made Baron Barrington, of Newcastle in the County of Limerick, also in the Peerage of Ireland, at the same time...

, whose house, Beckett Park, Berkshire, was designed by his brother-in-law, Tom Liddell, an amateur architect. Although Nikolaus Pevsner

Nikolaus Pevsner

Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...

previously stated that Clephan was a French architect who designed the present house instead of De Grey the amateur architect, as Charles Read has shown in his biography of De Grey, Clephan (born Clapham) in fact only produced drawings of the service infrastructure, such as plumbing and drainage, rather than the decorative layout or features of the house, which were produced by De Grey's own hand.

Wrest has some of the earliest Rococo revival

Rococo

Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

interiors in England. Reception rooms in the house are open to the public.

Wrest Park has an early eighteenth century garden, spread over 92 acres, which was probably originally laid out by George London

George London (landscape architect)

George London was an English nurseryman and garden designer. He aspired to the baroque style and worked on the gardens at Hampton Court, Melbourne Hall and Wimpole Hall....

and Henry Wise for Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent

Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent

Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent KG PC was a British politician and courtier.-Family:He was a son of Anthony Grey, 11th Earl of Kent and Mary Grey, 1st Baroness Lucas of Crudwell...

, then modified by 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...

in a more informal landscape style.

The park is divided by a wide gravel central walk, continued as a long canal that leads to a Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

style pavilion designed by Thomas Archer

Thomas Archer

Thomas Archer was an English Baroque architect, whose work is somewhat overshadowed by that of his contemporaries Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Archer was born at Umberslade Hall in Tanworth-in-Arden in Warwickshire, the youngest son of Thomas Archer, a country gentleman, Parliamentary...

and completed in 1711. Boundary canals were altered to take the more natural shape by Capability Brown

Capability Brown

who worked there between 1758–60, and who also ringed the central formal area with a canal and woodland. The gardens and garden houses were mapped by John Rocque

John Rocque

John Rocque was a surveyor and cartographer.Rocque was born no later than 1709, since that was the year he moved to England with his parents, who were French Huguenot émigrés...

in 1735. During the later 18th and 19th centuries, the Bath House, an orangery

Orangery

An orangery was a building in the grounds of fashionable residences from the 17th to the 19th centuries and given a classicising architectural form. The orangery was similar to a greenhouse or conservatory...

and marble fountains were added.

Restoration programme

In the autumn of 2007 English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

announced that the Wolfson Foundation

Wolfson Foundation

The Wolfson Foundation is a charity that awards grants to support excellence in the fields of science and medicine, health, education and the arts & humanities.- Overview :...

has pledged up to £400,000 towards the restoration of a number of the key features of the Wrest Park estate including the mansion's formal entrance area, the garden statuary, railings and gates decoration and altering the height of the carriage drive. In the next phases the lakes and canals will be restored.

On 12 September 2008 English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

unveiled extensive plans to restore the Grade I listed Wrest Park house and gardens to their original splendour. In 2008 the music video for The Fear

The Fear (song)

"The Fear" is a song by British recording artist Lily Allen from her second studio album, It's Not Me, It's You. Written by Allen and Greg Kurstin, the song was released as the lead single of the album...

by Lily Allen

Lily Allen

featured interior as well as exterior scenes of Wrest Park.

In July 2010 English Hertitage announced that they had secured over £1m from the Heritage Lottery Fund to develop a new visitors centre, car parking, exhibition space and accessible paths. Work was completed in summer 2011 and the park opened to the public on 4 August 2011.

Memorial column dedicated to Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

The inscription on the column, originally placed near the Bowling Green House (remodelled by Batty Langley

Batty Langley

Batty Langley was an English garden designer, and prolific writer who produced a number of engraved designs for "Gothick" structures, summerhouses and garden seats in the years before the mid-18th century.The eccentric landscape designer, who gave some of his numerous children names like Hiram,...

, 1735), and now located in the eastern part of the gardens:

'These gardens, originally laid out by Henry Duke of Kent, were altered by Philip Earl of Hardwicke and Jemima Marchioness Grey with the professional assistance of Lancelot Brown Esq. in the years 1758, 1759, 1760.'

External links

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Wrest Park