architecture, garden history, hampshire, Rustic shelter, Summerhouse

The Summerhouse, Stratfield Saye, Hampshire

After his great success in keeping Great Britain safe from Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington was asked to choose an estate which would be funded by a grateful nation. In 1817 he saw Stratfield Saye, and decided to make it his home. He lived there until his death in 1852, and it remains the seat of his descendants. In 1845 Queen Victoria announced that she and Prince Albert, together with their courtiers, were coming to stay with the ‘good old Duke’.

architecture, Borders, Column, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape, Monument, Obelisk

The Monument, Penielheugh, Borders, Scotland

On Sunday 18 June 1815 the British and Prussian armies, commanded respectively by the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal von Blücher, won the Battle of Waterloo. There were immediate demands for monuments across Britain to celebrate this great victory, but none were so quick to respond as William Kerr, the 6th Marquis of Lothian, and his family. By the end of June funds had been raised to erect ‘a monument on the summit of Penielheugh’, a lofty hill on the Marquis’s Monteviot estate.