In celebration of his 300th year a definitive survey of Capability Brown s most famous gardens
and landscapes in Britain. Widely acknowledged as the most influential landscape designer of
his age Lancelot Capability Brown was to England what Frederick Law Olmsted was to America
responsible for shaping the very ideal of the nation s parkland. Brown s ambition was to bring
out of a landscape the best of its potential rather than impose his own ideas upon it. His
designs are organic weaving gestures of color and perspective into the features that the
country already afforded. So natural are his designs and so perfectly do they complement the
houses within them that for many a Capability Brown landscape is the epitome of the English
estate. His gardens and parklands as much as the houses themselves would become icons of
British country life. Published to coincide with the tercentenary of his birth this remarkable
book illuminates fifteen of Brown s most celebrated landscapes. To love the great English
estates is to love the settings with which Brown surrounded them from idyllic parklands at
Milton and Broadlands to structured landscapes around iconic houses at Blenheim Burghley
Wakefield and Chatsworth. With photography commissioned for the book and including rarely
seen archival drawings that shed light on Brown s process this book serves as a guide to
Britain s most beloved landscapes and an exploration of the masterful mind behind their
creation.
