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Wrest Park
Wrest Park
This is one of the most magnificent gardens in England, yet one of the least well known. Unlike 'Capability' Brown's natural landscape styling, favoured during the late 18th century, Wrest Park's formal gardens provide a fascinating history of gardening styles, laid out over 150 years and inspired by the great gardens of Versailles in France. Wrest Park was the home of the De Grey family - whoseserried monuments fill the nearby De Grey Mausoleum -from the 13th century until 1917. The gardens are celebrated for their rare survival of a formal early 18th-century layout of wooded walks and canals, centred on the architectural highlight of the pavilion designed by Thomas Archer in 1709-11. Subsequent generations added garden buildings such as the Bath House and the Chinese Pavilion, valuing the special atmosphere of the established garden even when more fashionable landscapers would have swept it away. The old manor house was demolished when the present house was completed by 1839. This was designed by Thomas, Earl de Grey, an enthusiast for 18th-century French architecture. It is set further north than the site of the old house, and new formal gardens were laid out between the mansion and the woodland garden. The Orangery, Italian Garden and Parterre with magnificent lead statues date from the 1830s. Visitors can find out more from our display, introducing the three personalities who made Wrest what it is today: the duke and his formal gardens, his granddaughter Jemima'sinheritance and the architect earl's expansion . Don't miss our St George's Day event here, the largest in the country. Please note: No photography or stiletto heels in the house. Public access to the house is limited at present.

English Heritage Announces Vision for Wrest Park

Thomas Archer Pavillion English Heritage today (Wednesday, 10 September) unveiled plans to restore Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, one of Britain’s finest landscape gardens, to its original splendour. Wrest Park is possibly Britain’s largest ‘secret garden’ in that its treasures have been obliterated, overgrown and ignored for decades. Revealed and restored as English Heritage now intends, it will read once more as a magnificent ‘who’s who’ of garden history, including figures such as Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, William Kent and Thomas Archer.

Since it gained ownership of the estate two years ago, English Heritage has spent £2 million on conservation work, including a generous grant from the Wolfson Foundation. Now, following a detailed appraisal of the Grade I listed mansion and Grade I registered landscape, English Heritage can announce a 20-year plan to re-establish Wrest Park as one of the pre-eminent gardens in England.

Atlas Statue Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage said, “Wrest Park and its outstanding collection of historic garden buildings is one of the finest surviving eighteenth century landscapes in Britain. It is also one of our best kept historic secrets. Few know of its magnificence as for many years it was part of an agricultural research institute. Wrest Park is now being restored, reversing years of neglect and placing this once famous and beautiful landscape back into the limelight.”

Wrest Park belonged to the de Grey family from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century. The family commissioned many of the 18th century’s most famous designers including Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, William Kent, Batty Langley and Thomas Archer. But whereas in other gardens the previous designs were lost in the pursuit of new gardening vogues, each generation at Wrest Park respected the work of their predecessors. As a result, visitors today to Wrest Park can see the complete evolution over both the 18th and 19th century of one of this country’s greatest contributions to Western civilisation – the English garden.

Wrest Park Conservatory The garden’s first major phase dates from the start of the 18th century when Henry Grey, the first Duke of Kent, laid out the formal woodland garden, peopling wooded circles, squares and ovals with sculpture. The Duke was also responsible for commissioning Thomas Archer’s Baroque pavilion which terminates the Long Canal. As the fashion for Romantic gardening grew, the Duke’s granddaughter Jemima, Marchioness Grey, employed Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to soften the edges of the gardens. However Brown was so impressed with the gardens that he declared that any dramatic alterations would only “unravel the mysteries of the garden”. Finally Jemima’s grandson, Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey and the first President of the Royal Institute of British Architecture, built Wrest Park House between 1834 and 1839 and laid out new formal French and Italian gardens.

Over the next two decades, English Heritage will:

  • restore and open to the public the Countess’ Sitting Room and the Conservatory. The latter was built by Thomas, Earl de Grey, to allow his watchful wife to “see the whole length and inspect every dung barrow” in the kitchen-garden
  • repair Capability Brown’s lakes. Changes in the 1960s and ‘70s mean that the current water level at Wrest Park is too high, effectively drowning many of the hedges and trees
  • Restored Iron Railings restore the fountains to working order and reinstate the round pond at the Atlas statue
  • refurnish some of the most significant garden ‘rooms’ by reinstating the Duchess’ Column and the Duke’s Obelisk. These essential monuments were integral to the total garden design, knitting together the spaces within the woodland garden. However by 1934, the monuments had been sold and moved to Trent Park, Middlesex
  • create a sculpture display in the former Dairy to highlight some of the estate’s more vulnerable sculpture including a 17th century Neptune and a pair of 18th century commedia dell’arte figures
  • replant the Italian Garden to include such seasonal flowers such as in spring, wallflowers, tulips, hyacinths, and geraniums
  • restore the 1856 ‘Petit Trianon’ Swiss cottage and its special intimate setting, built by the Earl de Grey for his children
  • increase visitor access within the mansion to include the suite of rooms on the first floor containing beautiful and rare 19th century French and Chinese wallpaper
  • develop new visitor facilities within the Walled Gardens and enhance the historic paths, walkways, and avenues around the estate

Wrest Park House The conservation work completed so far, made possible by the Wolfson Foundation, includes the restoration of the Mansion’s formal entrance area, the iron garden railings and many of the garden statues.

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