Trentham gardens: Charles Quest-Ritson considers Tom Stuart-Smith's design and planting of the gardens' vast neo-ltalianate parterres to be a masterpiece

摘要

It was meant to be. Sir Charles Barry laid it out in 1840 for the super-rich second Duke of Sutherland. It was Barry's first major commission and he chose the Italianate style. There were balustrades, statues, parterres, fountains, clipped yews and abroad central axis that ran from the house for 250 yards until you arrived at a cast of Cellini's Perseus on the edge of Capability Brown's lake. The parterres alone spread over 10 acres on two levels, and the parkland to the side was spaciously plantedwith specimen trees. Barry knew the gardens of Italy and saw himself as an apostle of the Italian revival. Did he reinvent the Italian renaissance garden at Trentham? No, but he reinterpreted it. Trentham was the first significant Italianate garden in Britain, and certainly the greatest. Only its scale prevents it from being truly Italian. It was primarily a statement of wealth and power.