architecture, Folly, garden, landscape, Summerhouse, Temple, West Yorkshire

Temple of Venus & Bacchus, Bretton Hall, West Yorkshire. And a ‘Hammock of Love’ …

'Summer House at Bretton' J.C.Nattes, 1805 (detail). Courtesy of Barnsley Museums, Cannon Hall Museum Collection.

In the 1760s Sir Thomas Wentworth* (1726-1792) of Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, set about landscaping his park. Initially, he employed Richard Woods, a professional landscape designer, but soon decided he could manage just as well on his own. In the 1770s he added to his grand design without recourse to even the most eminent landscaper of the age: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. A second lake would, he told friends, be completed without the help of ‘Capability or any such pretending Rogues’.

architecture, Folly, garden, landscape, Rustic shelter, South Yorkshire, Summerhouse

Deffer Wood summerhouse, Cannon Hall, Barnsley, South Yorkshire

Deffer Wood summer house, Cannon Hall, Barnsley

Root houses, so named because they incorporated natural materials such as tree trunks, branches, bark, moss or heather, became key features of gardens and parks in the 18th century. Richard Payne Knight summed up the genre in his poem The Landscape in 1794

The cover’d seat, that shelters from the storm,
May oft a feature of the landscape form,
Whether composed of native stumps and roots,
It spreads the creeper’s rich fantastic shoots;

Folly, Obelisk, South Yorkshire, Temple, Tower

Wentworth Castle, South Yorkshire

Some great news. A joint statement from Barnsley Council, the National Trust and the Northern College was issued early this morning announcing that the future of Wentworth Castle now ‘looks more secure’. The three bodies have been in discussion since the site closed in April 2017, and now plan on ‘working collaboratively’ towards a reopening in 2019. Wentworth Castle is the only Grade I listed Park in South Yorkshire and has an outstanding collection of follies and landscape buildings, including Stainborough Castle pictured here. The house (which houses the Northern College and is not currently open to the public), the gardens and the landscape buildings were restored at great cost, largely thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, to secure their future. This new alliance must build on that work to ensure that Wentworth is enjoyed by the people of South Yorkshire and beyond.

The full press release is here:

https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/news/new-partnership-set-to-secure-the-future-of-wentworth-castle-gardens-in-south-yorkshire/