Formal water feature in gardens
In the
history of gardening
and
landscaping
, a
canal
is a relatively large piece of water that has a very regular shape, usually long, thin and rectangular.
[2]
The peak period for
garden canals
was the 17th and 18th centuries, by the end of which less formal water features were in favour, in the style of the
English landscape garden
. It is distinguished from a garden
pond
or lake by its shape, and typically falls somewhere between the two in area. It might be wholly artificial, created by diverting and damming a stream, or based around a natural
water feature
which is landscaped. Usually it appears to be enclosed, though in fact water passes in and out by channels below the surface. The edges are often walled, and the water relatively shallow.
[3]
Traditionally, in England the canal has been associated with the
Dutch garden
style of the later 17th century, especially from about 1690 to 1720, though this has been challenged in recent years. There was also a tradition of canals in the
French formal garden
style, culminating in the huge four-armed
Grand Canal
that dominates the bottom of the
Gardens of Versailles
, made in 1662?68, the main branch 1585 metres long and 122 wide.
[4]
A detailed study of canals in
Suffolk
found evidence of 56 in the county, some previously thought to be fragments of a
moat
or "mere ponds"; "Amazingly, in view of the received wisdom about the scarcity of surviving canals nationally, a high proportion of these are still recognisable and water-filled".
[5]
Analysis of the proportions of these showed that nearly half were between 5 and 10 times as long as they were wide, with the next largest groups (10 or 11 each) those with ratios of 1 to 5, and then 10 to 15.
[6]
Most were between 50 and 100 metres long, but two were 460 and 300 metres. A few use a tapering shape to give (from one end) an impression of being longer than they actually are. Some had or have islands, others cascades into them.
[7]
Apart from being a highly prestigious, because expensive, ornament to a garden, and a pleasant place to walk, canals had some practical uses. A large stock of water near the house may have been useful for watering the garden and other household purposes; some houses had special "dipping pools" for the gardeners and servants to take water from. Many canals were stocked with fish, and they attracted edible waterfowl, who could nest safely if there was an island. Boats of an appropriate size could be taken out, and the
Earl of Bristol
nearly drowned at
Ickworth House
in 1717, when he was in "imminent danger from being some time under water in my new-made canal here, with the boate (out of which I fell topsy-turvy) driven by the wind over my head". He may have been fishing with a rod, by now a popular leisure activity.
[8]
Louis XIV famously staged mock naval battles on the
Grand Canal
at Versailles. Canals were made during the
Little Ice Age
, and allowed
ice skating
during the winter, as well as swimming in summer.
History
[
edit
]
Connections to the very long history of long and thin formal water features in gardens elsewhere have not been clearly demonstrated. Setting ancient gardens aside, these have been a strong feature of the
Persian garden
and
Islamic gardens
generally, with some found in
Islamic Spain
. The very small example in the
Generalife
, part of the
Alhambra
,
Granada, Spain
, is famous. In France, there were examples at
Fleury-en-Biere
, not far from Paris, in the 16th century, and at the nearby
Palace of Fontainebleau
by 1609. Numerous others can be seen in the prints of great houses in France by
Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau
(d. 1584). The medieval garden in England, as elsewhere in Europe, had a long tradition of moats, fishponds, and "decorative
meres
".
[9]
England
[
edit
]
A "canal-like feature" was created for
Baptist Hicks, 1st Viscount Campden
at
Chipping Campden
before 1629, but the English history of the garden canal really begins with the
English Restoration
of 1660, when Charles II and his loyal courtiers returned from an exile mostly spent in the Netherlands, or in France.
[10]
Although not especially interested in gardens, Charles asked Louis XIV to allow him to borrow his chief gardener and landscaper,
Andre Le Notre
, apparently to advise on
Hampton Court Palace
and the planned palace at
Greenwich
in particular. Permission was given, but Le Notre never made the journey, and
Andre Mollet
and his brother Claude came instead.
[11]
Andre Mollet had worked for both of Charles' parents, and had paid visits to England since the 1620s.
The Mollets were responsible for a canal in what is now
St James's Park
in
Westminster
, and the large "Long Canal" (now usually "Long Water") at Hampton Court; the "first long canals to be built in England".
[12]
Of these, the very long and thin canal (775-metre by 38-metre, or 850 by 42-yards) in St James's was later expanded and remodelled into the current lake, with some filled in to allow for an expansion of
Horse Guard's Parade
. This was mostly done by
John Nash
in the 1820s for
the Prince Regent
. The Hampton Court one remains intact, with a narrow semi-circle added at the palace end by
William III
in 1699. William III was interested in gardening, and is usually credited with adding to the influence of
Dutch gardens
on England.
[13]
Others soon followed the royal lead, for example at
Wrest Park
in
Bedfordshire
, where the "Long Water", "Broad Water" and "Ladies Lake" have managed to survive a makeover by
Capability Brown
in the 18th century. Wrest Park was done by
George London
and his partner
Henry Wise
, the leading English designers of the day, for
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent
in the 1700s.
[14]
The Dutch engravers
Jan Kip
's and
Leonard Knijff
's aerial perspective views in various prints and books culminating in
Britannia Illustrata, or Views of Several of the Queens Palaces also of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain
, published in London in 1709 and later in an expanded French edition, shows many leading houses and their gardens at a point near the peak of the trend, which really "took hold" in the 1690s.
[15]
They must sometimes be treated with a certain caution, as showing what was planned rather than what had actually been constructed.
[16]
King
George I
, while still only
Elector of Hanover
, had excavated a long thin canal running around the edge of the
Herrenhausen Gardens
outside
Hanover
on the three sides away from the palace, which remains. Generally, leaders in taste began moving away from very formal garden designs in the 1720s.
[17]
The Serpentine
in
Hyde Park
in London, a royal project of the 1730s, was one of the earliest artificial lakes designed to appear natural, with an irregular curving shape.
[18]
A number of more regular serpentine canals were dug "from the late 1720s", following a fashion established for garden paths and walks some years before. One at
Longleat House
was so adapted in 1736-37.
[19]
By 1771,
Horace Walpole
, a vocal enthusiast for the new English landscape garden style, thought the Wrest Park gardens "very ugly in the old-fashioned manner with high hedges and canals",
[20]
and few new canals were being constructed (one excavated in 1759 is mentioned as exceptionally late).
[21]
Many were converted to more natural-seeming shapes; for example the canal at
Culford Park
in Suffolk was described as "new" in 1698, but in 1795 was filled in to create a larger lake, crossing it at right angles.
[22]
In the next century there was a revival in more formal gardens, with the influential garden designer and writer
John Claudius Loudon
a significant figure. Shorter and fatter canals began to be built, often featuring the many varieties of
water-lilies
that were available by then. They tended to be placed as the centre of a thickly-planted
flower garden
, rather than being flanked by regular avenues of trees, as the larger original ones often were.
[23]
The "Canal Gardens" at
Roundhay Park
in
Leeds
are an early example of this, constructed in 1833 when the park was still a large private garden. The canal is still long, at 350 feet (107 m) by 34 feet (10 m). The "Jellicoe Canal" at the
RHS Garden Wisley
, with a large collection of water-lilies, dates to the 1970s.
[24]
Placement and shapes
[
edit
]
The classic placement of a canal was at right-angles to the centre of the garden front (normally the rear), allowing uninterrupted views to and from the house. This was followed at Versailles, Hampton Court, Wrest Park and most other houses. Some canals were at right angles to the facade, but offset to one side, and others parallel to the facade. This cut off the house from the garden beyond the canal unless there were bridges, which were rare. At
Longleat
, with a sloping site, the "first big commission" of London and Wise, the effect of a canal was achieved by a series of connected pieces of water of different sizes and shapes running parallel to the main garden facade (in fact at the side) quite near the house. These ran under several bridges of different sizes, and down cascades, so that a walk in the garden is little impeded. Various other arrangements are found, some dictated by the site, or the reuse of a pre-existing feature such as a moat. Some houses had more than one canal, typically parallel, as at
Stonyhurst
, but not always.
[25]
Most canals were strictly
rectangles
, though of greatly varying proportions, but there were some deviations, though very few shapes as complicated as at Versailles. At
Chevening
the far end had a curving bulge at one side only, and at Westbury Court there is a T-shaped canal.
[26]
At Hampton Court Charles II's Long Canal was expanded by William III, at the palace end, with much narrower curved branches, with bridges, running round the outside of the semi-circle of
parterres
of his new "Great Fountain Garden", and then parallel to the palace facade.
[27]
At
Studley Royal
in Yorkshire, where
John Aislabie
,
Chancellor of the Exchequer
during the
South Sea Bubble
, retreated in disgrace (after a period in the
Tower
),
[28]
the extensive
water gardens
do not include a canal on a strict definition, as the small
River Skell
was used as it passed through the grounds, including "canalizing" it in two straightened sections. There is no attempt to create an axis relative to the house, or indeed among the elements of water.
[29]
The
Upper Lodge Water Gardens
in
Bushy Park
, opposite Hampton Court Palace, was another scheme using the
Longford River
, created for the palace's canals, made in 1709-15, and recently partly restored.
[30]
Skating
[
edit
]
Ice skating
on metal skates seems to have arrived in England at the same time as the garden canal, with the English Restoration in 1660. In London St James's Park was the main centre until the 19th century. Both
Samuel Pepys
and
John Evelyn
, the two leading diarists of the day, saw it on the "new canal" there on 1 December 1662, the first time Pepys had ever seen it ("a very pretty art"). Then it was "performed before their Majesties and others, by diverse gentlemen and others, with scheets after the manner of the Hollanders". Two weeks later, on 15 December 1662, Pepys accompanied the Duke of York, later King
James II
, on a skating outing: "To the Duke, and followed him in the Park, when, though the ice was broken, he would go slide upon his skates, which I did not like; but he slides very well." In 1711
Jonathan Swift
still thinks the sport might be unfamiliar to
his "Stella"
: "Delicate walking weather; and the Canal and Rosamund's Pond full of the rabble and with skates,
if you know what that is
.
[31]
The Versailles Grand Canal flotilla
[
edit
]
The
Grand Canal
at Versailles remained exceptional in its size, and as a metaphor for Louis XIV's power. As part of this, a flotilla of naval and pleasure craft was planned for it from the time of construction. These came to include 14
gondolas
, some built on site and others presented (with
gondoliers
) by the
Republic of Venice
, small rowing boats, and reduced-sized warships, both oar-powered
galleys
and sailing ships. Various of these took part in staged mock-battles. By the 1670s buildings had been built to house the 260 men working on the flotilla, who at times included enslaved "Moors".
[32]
Gallery
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
National Trust "History" page
- ^
Martin, 213: "These canals were not the waterways used by commercial barges, but were long and thin ponds that were decorative features in formal gardens"
- ^
Martin, 213?215
- ^
Martin, 214?215; Quest-Ritson, 79?83
- ^
Martin, 214
- ^
Martin, graph on p. 221
- ^
Martin, 221
- ^
Martin, 226?227
- ^
Martin, 214
- ^
Martin, 214?215
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 79?80
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 79?80, 80 quoted
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 80?82; Martin, 215
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 82?89
- ^
Martin, 215, quoted
- ^
Jacques, 31, although he generally defends their accuracy
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 112?115, 121?122
- ^
"Hyde Park: Park of Pleasure"
. The Royal Parks. 2007. Archived from
the original
on 11 September 2007
. Retrieved
5 September
2007
.
- ^
Jacques, 333-334
- ^
Quoted, Martin, 215
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 121?122
- ^
Monument record CUL 035 ? Post Medieval garden canal, part of a large formal garden around Culford Hall.
, Suffolk Heritage Explorer, Suffolk Historic Environment Record data.
- ^
Martin, 215, 221; Hobhouse, 229?233, 238
- ^
RHS: "Jellicoe Canal"
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 84?85 (84 quoted); Martin, 224?226
- ^
Added some 20 years after the Main Canal. There was also a further canal, now gone. See
the entry on the National Heritage List for England
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 89
- ^
"AISLABIE, John (1670-1742), of Studley Royal, nr. Ripon, Yorks."
, from
The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754
, History of Parliament website
- ^
Trotha, 61-62;
National Trust map of the site
- ^
Chris Wickham (7 October 2009).
"Baroque water garden opens in Bushy Park"
.
Richmond and Twickenham Times
. Retrieved
25 April
2011
.
- ^
Larwood, Jacob
,
St. James's Park
, Vol. 2 of
The Story of the London Parks
, 118?119, 1872, Hotwood,
google books
. Larwood notes that "the London boys" had improvised butcher's bones as skates since the 12th century. Rosamund's Pond was also in St James's Park, see pp. 85 (map), 87.
- ^
Martin, Meredith, and Weiss, Gillian,
The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV's France
, 89?94, 2022, Getty Publications,
google books
- ^
Hampton Court Palace
, c.1665-67
,
Royal Collection
- ^
Quest-Ritson, 82
References
[
edit
]
- Hobhouse, Penelope
,
Plants in Garden History
, 2004, Pavilion Books,
ISBN
1862056609
- Jacques, David
,
Gardens of Court and Country: English Design 1630-1730
, 2017, Yale University Press,
ISBN
978-0-300-22201-2
- Martin, Edward, "Garden Canals in Suffolk", in
East Anglian History: Studies in Honour of Norman Scarfe
, C. Harper-Bill, C. Rawcliffe and R.G.. Wilson (eds.), 2002, Boydell Press,
ISBN
978-0-85115-878-5
- Quest-Ritson, Charles
,
The English Garden: A Social History
, 2003, Penguin,
ISBN
978-0-14-029502-3
- Trotha, Hans von,
The English Garden
, 2009, Haus Publishing,
ISBN
9781906598204