In an English country garden…
The garden seats planned for Lady Salusbury and her companion Mrs Maud
A new addition to the local history collections at Brent Archives arrived this morning, which reveals the plans for a beautiful landscaped garden only a stone’s throw from the current site of the Museum and Archives at Willesden Green. The book, which we have been able to purchase with the generous support of a local donor, reproduces the text pages and illustrations from two ‘Red Books’ produced by the renowned landscape designer Humphry Repton to outline his proposals for the gardens of two of his clients. As well as the ‘Red Book’ plans for the gardens at Glemham Hall in Suffolk, it reproduces the ‘Red book for Brandsbury’ – or as we might know it today, Brondesbury.
Repton produced the Red Book for Brandsbury in 1789 for Lady Salusbury, widow of a judge of the High Court of the Admiralty, introducing his plans with the inscription: “To the Honourable Lady Salusbury. These plans, sketches and proposals for the improvement of Her Ladyship’s Villa lately purchased, call’d BRANDSBURY at WILSDEN, in MIDDLESEX are most respectably inscribed by HER LADYSHIP’S most obedient & very faithful humble servant H. Repton.”
Repton planned a garden with views across London, but his client wanted shade rather than sweeping views, and he outlines his proposals for her in a section entitled ‘On shade’. The grounds were of Lady Salusbury’s house were small, amounting to no more than 10 acres, but on his first visit Repton found only a few trees there, and to meet his client’s demands, hundreds or mature trees and shrubs were planted there over the coming months. Lady Salusbury was so delighted with the work she gave Repton a bonus of the substantial sum of £50.
The street names in the area today attest to its former life as landscaped parkland, where Brondesbury Park leads into Salusbury Road; and now local residents, landscape architects, and anyone else interested in Brent’s local history can view this fascinating book at Brent Archives.
Posted by Kate
brentmuseumandarchives
Colin C.
Emir Ghariani
I am looking forward to seeing the designs for Brondesbury Park in this new book. The word “Park” after the name of its location is often a feature of landscapes designed by Repton, and Richard Page’s estate at Wembley became known as Wembly Park at the time of Repton’s work there in 1793.
I have a funny feeling that his designs for Brondesbury Park include one of the first uses of a “ha-ha”, a feature which Repton introduced to English gardens. A “ha-ha” is used for keeping animals such as deer, sheep or cattle (which Repton liked to use as part of his landscapes, as they ‘enliven the scene’) out of a more formal garden, without the need for a hedge or fence, so that the view from the main house is not interrupted.