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Bridgeman, Chls

Full Name: Charles Bridgeman

Achievements: 18th century landscape gardening

Born: Unknown

Died: July 19, 1738; London. Aged about 50

Field & Discipline: Gardening; Architecture; Landscape Architect

Language: English

Father: Unknown

Mother: Unknown

Siblings: Unknown

Spouse: Sarah Mist

Children: Charles; Sarah; Elizabeth; Ann; 3 others

Education: Unknown

Major Work:

"A General Plan of the Woods, Park and Gardens at Stowe"

Life & Times:

In 1709, in close association with playwright/architect [worked with] Sir John Vanbrugh*, Bridgeman worked on the gardens of Blenheim Palace for the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough.

In 1711, Bridgeman and Vanbrugh began work on the magnificent house and gardens of Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, at Stowe, Buckinghamshire.  Bridgeman, who designed the original project, would keep working on it intermittently throughout his life.  Bridgeman collaborated closely with Vanbrugh until Vanbrugh died in 1726.

Bridgeman was influenced by the French geometric layouts of the late 1600s and early 1700s, in particular the work of [influenced by] Le Notre*, and his early garden designs were variations on the geometric theme, with square level lawns, straight walks flanked by topiary, wildernesses criss-crossed with lanes, and avenues focused on the main facade of the house.

In 1720, Bridgeman began work on poet Matthew Prior's house at Down Hill, Essex, a project that was being subsidized by Prior's patron, Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford.  Impressed with Bridgeman's work, Harley hired him to work on the gardens at his Wimpole estate, and introduced him to the "Wimpole circle,” which included poet [knew]  Pope*, who was also a landscape enthusiast.

In 1726, King George I named Bridgeman one of his chief gardeners, and put him in charge of the gardens at Hampton Court,  Kensington,  Newmarket, Windsor, and St. James's Palace.  When George II came to the throne in 1728, he named Bridgeman Royal Gardener, a post he held until his death.

In the late 1720s, Prime Minister [hired by] Robert Walpole* hired Bridgeman to redesign the garden at Houghton, Norfolk, which had long been the main residence of the Walpole family.  To complement the new Palladian villa, Bridgeman composed a setting of comparable magnificence, overriding the elaborate geometric garden that had been built there 10 years earlier.

He boldly removed the dense mesh of intersecting avenues and replaced them with a much starker and monumental design.  The eastern and western vistas from and towards the house were now more subtly implied by blocks of massed planting rather than by regular lines of trees, and the facades of the north and south of the house were framed by wide, double-planted avenues.  Trees were planted between these new avenues, making them run through woodland rather than open parkland.

The vastness and simplicity of the design served to complement the house and to proclaim the power of the owner.

To create these expansive vistas at Houghton and elsewhere, Bridgeman made extensive use of the "ha-ha,” a concept borrowed from French gardeners, who, in turn, had borrowed it from French the military during the 17th century.  The "ha-ha" describes a boundary to keep out animals (usually a concealed ditch or low fence or wall) that is created without interfering with the vista.

From 1730 to 1733, Bridgeman was commissioned by Queen Caroline to design the Serpentine in London's Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, which joined the Serpentine and Kensington Palace.  (Both designs were later modified by [worked with] Kent*).  By the end of the 1730s, Bridgeman had completed his work at Stowe, with Kent helping him on the "Elysian Fields" in the outer reaches of the park.  In 1734, [satirized by] Hogarth* satirized Bridgeman in his painting "The Rake's Progress,” presenting him as a symbol of one of the things that could lead a rake to ruin -- landscaping having now become one of the most expensive and popular pastimes of the upper classes.

Bridgeman's work is often cited as a major influence on Kent and [some influence on] Capability Brown*, but only the Serpentine, the large winding lake in Hyde Park formed by joining the marshy ponds of the River Westbourne, offers any evidence for this claim.  Indeed, though Kent helped Bridgeman at Stowe, he would later redesign the gardens in a far more naturalistic style.

Assessment: His work culminated in the creation of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, the most celebrated landscape of the day.

Oneliner: Charles Bridgeman,  early landscape gardener

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