Widely acknowledged as the last great landscape designer of the eighteenth century, Humphry Repton created work that survives as a bridge between the picturesque theory of Capability Brown and the pastoral philosophy of Frederick Law Olmsted. By turns inspired by and in opposition to the grandeur of Brown s estates, Repton s contribution to the British landscape encompassed a tremendous range, from subtle adjustments that emphasised the natural features of the countryside to deliberate interventions that challenged the notion of the picturesque. This remarkable book explores 15 of Repton s most celebrated landscapes from the early maturity of his gardens at Courteenhall and Mulgrave Castle to more adventurous landscapes at Stanage, Brightling, and Endsleigh that would point the way toward how we envision parkland today. With photography by Joe Cornish commissioned specially for the book, and including reproductions of key illustrations and plans for garden design from the famous red books that shed light on Repton s vision and process, this book illuminates some of Britain s most beautiful gardens and parks and the masterful mind behind their creation.

Widely acknowledged as the most influential land- scape 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 colour 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 park- lands 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, Wake- field, 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.