Cliveden, Maidenhead, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Cliveden House was built initially as a 'summer palace' on a virgin site on cliffs high above the River Thames for George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. Villiers began levelling a great platform for the house in about 1666. John Evelyn visited Cliveden in 1679 and mentions gardens and an avenue through the woods. Little else is known of this garden. The first Earl of Orkney bought Cliveden in 1696 and laid out the gardens from at least 1706 until his death in 1737. This was the major formative period in the site's development.

Following Orkney's death in 1737 Cliveden was let to Frederick, Prince of Wales who used the house as a summer residence until his death in 1751. It is uncertain how much, if any, new work he was responsible for. His name is linked with the creation of the Ilex Grove, but it is more likely Charles Bridgeman's (d 1738) work.

During the later 18th century the formal design was naturalised, softening the linear features, except for the very core of the garden north and south of the house including the Great Parterre. An 1818 survey shows that many avenues and most of the trees which originally surrounded the Great Parterre had gone. Lancelot Brown (1716-1783) was consulted by the Earl of Inchiquin, husband of the second Countess of Orkney who owned Cliveden, in the late 1770s at their adjacent estate Taplow Court, but it is not clear whether Brown worked at Cliveden.

The site changed hands several times during the 19th century. Between buying the estate in 1849 and his death in 1861 the second Duke of Sutherland undertook work in the garden and pleasure grounds, followed by the Duke of Westminster from 1869. In 1893 the first Viscount Astor, then William Waldorf Astor, bought Cliveden, and added many important features to the garden, including the 1618 Villa Borghese balustrade. In 1966 the National Trust took over the house and gardens from the Astors and have since carried out extensive restoration. The house is now let by the Trust as an hotel (1996).