Lancelot 'Capability' Brown - Who Was He?

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown by Nathaniel Dance, (died 1811) - National Portrait Gallery: NPG 1490

During the 18th century if you owned a country house and wanted society people to visit and admire your stately seat, then you needed to ensure that the architectural style of the house and gardens were contemporary and 'in vogue'. Throughout the period there was one single name which was on the lips of the gentry when it came to updating their estate and gardens, Lancelot 'Capability' Brown.

Brown was born in 1716 in a village in Northumbria called Kirkhale, to William (a land agent) and Ursula Brown. He was the fifth child and so whilst he was not born into poverty, he certainly was not born to privilege or into the gentry. He was educated at Cambo School until the age of 16 when he left to become a gardener's apprentice at the same estate that his father worked at. He worked there until the age of 23 where his interest and passion for gardening was fostered by the estate owner Sir William Loraine.

Following this role, Brown moved to Stowe which was his breakthrough position. As under gardener to William Kent he was privy to great opportunity as well as expertise. He arrived at Stowe in 1741 and within ten years he had moved to London with his family to set up his own landscape design company.

"Brown's career as a landscape architect spanned over 50 years and he was responsible for transforming huge expanses of the British Isles and beyond into the natural Arcadian parkland that is so synonymous with English scenery. In reality he didn't so much design a landscape as allow nature to dictate its own surroundings." (Capability Brown & Belvoir: Discovering a Lost Landscape from The Duchess of Rutland and Jane Pruden).

Whilst the gentry loved Brown and were keen to employ him on their lands, the local village people must have quaked in their books when they learned he was to be employed at their local gentry's estate as Brown was known for wiping out villages if they got in the way of his vision or were too close to the country house in question.

Audley End, Nuneham and Bowood were just a few of the villages which were demolished either as a way to increase the separation between the poor of the villages and the rich of the 'big house', or because they sat in direct view of the house and therefore spoiled the rural view he was trying to create.

Badminton House - an example of Brown's work

The idea of Brown's landscape was to give inhabitants an visitors of the house an unbroken view across a landscape of rolling hills, fields, trees and lakes. If a village or church got in the way, it ran the risk of either being totally demolished and its inhabitants forced to move elsewhere, or, it could be moved and relocated elsewhere.

Brown was also criticised for the fact that when his landscapes were introduced at a country estate, they often wiped out any formal gardens, meaning many historical garden features were lost.

Whatever side you come down upon, either a staunch anti-Brown or Brown lover, one thing can be certain - Lancelot 'Capability' Brown designed some of the most famous landscapes in the country including Chatsworth, Blenheim Palace, Althorp Hall, Longleat, Hampton Court Palace, Harewood House, Kew Gardens, Warwick Castle and Stowe Landscape Garden among hundreds more.