The Picturesque was the final phase of the English Landscape Movement. Capability Brown’s serpentine curves, smooth lawns and clumps of trees were now considered insipid and dull by a generation with an enthusiasm for untamed nature and rugged wildness The aim was always to engender a pleasurable frisson of fear. Repton knew that this was all very well as theory, but his clients actually required practicality and, above all, beauty. Wildness was gradually tamed to become the formal gardens of the nineteenth century.

Lecturer: James Bolton

Inchbald School of Design 1990 (Dip ISD). Head Gardener, Old Rectory Farnborough 1990-92. Faculty Director, Design History, Inchbald School of Design. Garden Designer 1992-. A lecturer for The Arts Society since 1995. Organiser of The Arts Society’s garden study days and tours in UK and Europe. Organises tours to the best private gardens in the UK, Italy, France and South Africa. Garden Mania, a book on garden ornaments, published in 2000.