Bowood, Calne, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The first Earl of Shelburne purchased Bowood in 1754 and completed the house started in the early 18th century. An early 18th-century park is recorded in a contemporary painting and maps. In 1755-60 the first Earl commissioned the architect Henry Keene to enlarge the house and in 1757 he asked Lancelot Brown (1716-83) to give advice on a landscape garden to complement the new house. Brown was not formally commissioned however until after 1761 when the first Earl died and his son, the second Earl, later first Marquess of Lansdowne, inherited the estate. Brown's ideas for the park at Bowood are shown on his plan dated 1763 and include extensive tree planting and the creation of a large lake. At that time, the second Earl had also commissioned Robert Adam (1728-92) to undertake further alterations to the house. The latter designed a mausoleum in the park to commemorate the first Earl and this is shown on Brown's plan. In about 1785 a picturesque cascade and grotto with extensive rockwork were added to the head of Brown's lake, with advice from Charles Hamilton. The latter was the owner of Painshill, Surrey (please see description of this site elsewhere) where Josiah Lane created similar extensive rockworks. In the late 18th century (before 1801), Humphry Repton (1752-1818) possibly advised on landscape works at Bowood (Carter et al 1982). In 1817, under the ownership of the third Marquess of Lansdowne, Robert Smirke (1780-1867) constructed an upper terrace outside Robert Adam's mid-18th-century orangery, which connected the pavilions of the main house. Later, in 1848, the third Marquess introduced a large pinetum, laid out by John Spencer, head gardener at the time. In 1851 Robert Smirke's terrace was complemented by a formal garden on the lower terrace created by George Kennedy.

In 1955 the house was demolished except for the service courts and orangery, which were converted into a new house by the architect F S Samuels. Bowood remains (2001) in private ownership. There are currently plans to build a new hotel and conference centre near the golf course that was laid out in the park in the late 1990s.