Water is an important part of any garden design and has been used throughout history to delight garden visitors, particularly in the form of fountains. Witley Court is home to one of the largest fountains at English Heritage’s sites. The Perseus and Andromeda fountain (c.1860) dominates the parterre garden to the south of the ruins of Witley Court, which was destroyed by fire in 1937. The Portland stone sculptures depict Perseus atop Pegasus, the winged horse, rescuing Andromeda from a sea monster, as inspired by the classical Greek myth. They were carved by the architectural and ecclesiastical sculptor James Forsyth (1827–1910). The myth was a popular fountain composition for its watery and heroic connotations. You can see a bronze example at Osborne.

The main water jet was thought to reach a height of 36 metres in its heyday. A further 120 water jets are hidden among the carvings of shells, dolphins and nymphs. Don’t miss the fountain in the east parterre at Witley too, once topped with a figure of Flora, surrounded by four trumpet-blowing Tritons. Such was the scale of the formal gardens, that their designer, William Andrews Nesfield, referred to them as his ‘monster’ work.

Fountains come in all shapes and sizes at English Heritage, from across different periods of history. One of the oldest is the 17th-century Venus fountain, still in situ at the centre of the fountain garden at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire. At Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Garden in Warwickshire, the 18-foot high reconstructed Atlas fountain is made from white Carrara marble from Tuscany, just at the original would have been.

Where to see…

• Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire
• Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Garden, Warwickshire
• Osborne, Isle of Wight
• Witley Court and Gardens, Worcestershire

Historic gardens on country estates are often set within acres of rolling parkland, dotted with trees among grassy, undulating landscapes. Parkland scenes such as these became widely popular in the mid-18th century, most famously designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. These vast informal landscapes often replaced older formal avenues of trees, creating softer pastoral backdrops thought to be partly inspired by Arcadian landscape paintings. The use of a ‘ha-ha’, a sunken fence, allowed for an uninterrupted view out into the landscape park while containing any grazing animals such as cattle.

At South Yorkshire’s Roche Abbey in the 1770s, Brown was commissioned to remodel the landscape that contained the ruins of the 12th-century Cistercian abbey. Brown used the medieval water channels to form a winding river and cascade, and planted ‘clumps’ of trees in the surrounding fields to fulfil the image of the parkland landscape. While the main abbey ruins were the centrepiece of the parkland landscape, Brown levelled some parts to give a flat lawned area in front of a banqueting lodge that overlooked the view. In the 19th century, excavation works began to recover parts of the lost abbey previously sacrificed for Brown’s landscape.

‘Capability’ Brown also worked at Audley End, where he reshaped the River Cam to form the impression of a lake, and planted the Cedar still standing next to the house. At Appuldurcombe House on the Isle of Wight, Brown created parkland four times the size of that at Audley End. At Wrest Park, Brown is memorialised in a monument in the gardens for his work at the site in the late 1770s.

Where to see…

• Appuldurcombe House, Isle of Wight
• Audley End House and Gardens, Essex
• Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire
• Wrest Park, Bedfordshire

Georgian garden tourists: a potted history of visiting gardens
Visiting gardens became a favourite pursuit of 18th-century upper classes. It’s also a passion that many of us enjoy today. But were the garden tourists of the Georgian era anything like us? Find out in this episode of The English Heritage Podcast.

Woodland walks have historically been a prized feature of gardens, offering shade and quieter spaces for contemplation or private conversations. Early 18th-century woodland gardens or ‘wildernesses’ were formal spaces, with geometrically arranged avenues and paths through the trees, lined with formal hedges.

These were often swept away by the more open landscape styles of the mid-18th century. Before long, the ‘picturesque’ movement popularised less ‘designed’ landscape forms, and had captured the imagination of Sir Charles Monck at Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens in Northumberland at the turn of the 19th century. Monck created a rugged, rocky woodland walk at Crag Wood, high above the parkland. Over time, exotic conifers such as Monkey Puzzles were planted among native trees such as Scots Pines, and views cut out over the lake towards the hall. The remote, unkempt nature of the wood contrasted with the formal terraces near the house and 18th-century pastoral parkland, but complemented Belsay’s near-unique quarry gardens – a rare survival of a ‘picturesque’ garden. After the loss of many trees in Storm Arwen in 2021, Crag Wood has recently been replanted to help secure its future.

Elsewhere, you can discover hidden surprises in the ‘bosquets’ or garden rooms of Wrest Park’s formal woodland, or follow the winding paths of a 19th-century woodland pleasure garden at Walmer Castle. At Down House, visitors can walk in the footsteps of Charles Darwin along the Sandwalk woodland circuit – a daily routine during which Darwin did much of his thinking – enjoying a historic tradition of a contemplative woodland space.

Where to see…

• Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens, Northumberland
• Down House, Kent
• Walmer Castle and Gardens, Kent
• Wrest Park, Bedforshire

Belsay awakes: Recreating history in Belsay Hall’s gardens
In this episode of The English Heritage Podcast, head of the gardens and landscape team John Watkins, and acclaimed landscape designer Dan Pearson reveal the history of Belsay Hall's gardens and how they are being brought back to their blooming best.