UNDERSTANDING HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 3.8 CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS 3.8.1 PARKS, GARDENS AND WALLED GARDENS Before the eighteenth century, gardens and parks were designed both for pleasure and the cultivation of vegetables and herbs, and would have contained structures such as walls, arbours, follies and foundations. Some 3,000 medieval deer parks are recorded, and usually lay in open countryside, enclosed by pales. By the early eighteenth century, garden fashions were moving away from the rigid order of formal gardens, and long, designed views became important, which led to the introduction of the sunken wall and ha-ha. Temples, ruins and statues appeared as eye catchers and the short-lived fashion for curved Rococco features were popular. Historic England has observed that ‘Such landscape parks are reckoned among England’s most important contributions to European civilization’.02 By the mid-eighteenth century informal landscapes evolved rapidly, largely due to the influence of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. As at Raby Castle, huge numbers of landscapes were transformed and laid out with pasture, undulating grounds studded with clumps, plantation belts to screen villages and new lakes devised to resemble rivers. The whole was enclosed within a tall wall, punctuated by entrances with gatekeeper’s lodges (appearing from the later seventeenth century). Kitchen and formal walled gardens also multiplied at this time as technological developments in propagation and horticulture expanded the range of what could be cultivated.03
Whilst the new landscapes were of interest, owners also wanted areas to walk, and shrubs/flowers to provide interest. The influence of Humphry Repton c.1800 led to raised terraces and flower beds or urns, with lawns, shrubberies and architectural features such as summerhouses. Gardens became more formal again in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and Coade stone was frequently used for statuary. Walled kitchen gardens supplied the house with vegetables, fruit and flowers. The tall walls created a micro-climate, but at Raby, would have also protected the produce from the deer. These gardens were southfacing and the north walls were heated with a complex system of flues and associated boiler houses. Walled gardens were productive, bustling and energetic spaces, that demonstrated horticultural showmanship and the power and status of the owner. These were innovative places where new techniques were applied, and exotic edible plants cultivated, often at considerable cost and requiring great skill. Earlier walled gardens in the mideighteenth century would have been a talking point and delight for guests, but by the nineteenth century they were being screened from the main house as merely productive areas. Raby is therefore unusual in that it remained in situ, in full view of the Castle gates.
Contents Structures within parks and gardens were either for pleasure or utility. Within the Walled Gardens and stables area, the majority are for utility, with statuary, formal planting and landscaping providing the pleasure. However, functional structures essential to maintenance were often embellished architecturally to allow discerning visitors to be shown around. At Raby, the Gardener's House, Byre House and stable block were all ‘Gothickised’ to form a coherent ensemble. Elaborate gates, piers, fencing and walls are all found at Raby, controlling access into and within the landscape.
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Landscape structures such as deer houses were usually of high architectural quality as they also acted as eyecatchers. At Raby, kennels and associated house were also of high-quality, and are a typical element of high status complexes, providing facilities for foxhounds as this became popular in the early eighteenth century. Examples pre-dating the 1850s, as at Raby, are of national significance.
Generally, the gardener would have lived on site in a spacious house, and from the 1840s the range of glasshouses expanded as glass became cheap. This was certainly the case at Raby and the increased use of glasshouses is clearly shown in the Ordnance Survey maps during the nineteenth century and twentieth century.
Turner’s view of Raby Castle and the Park (first exhibited 1818)
02 Historic England, Rural Landscapes: Register of Parks and Gardens Selection Guide, 2018, 10 03 Ibid 87