Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738) was an English garden designer who helped pioneer the naturalistic landscape style. Although he was a key figure in the transition of English garden design from the Anglo-Dutch formality of patterned parterres and avenues to a freer style that incorporated formal, structural and wilderness elements, Bridgeman's innovations in English landscape architecture have been somewhat eclipsed by the work of his more famous successors, William Kent and Lancelot "Capability" Brown.
Charles Bridgeman
Bridgeman, clutching a garden plan, behind the dancing-master in William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, No. 2, 1732–1734
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden, is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical French formal garden which had emerged in the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. Created and pioneered by William Kent and others, the "informal" garden style originated as a revolt against the architectural garden and drew inspiration from landscape paintings by Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorrain, and Nicolas Poussin.
Rotunda at Stowe Gardens (1730-38)
The paintings of Claude Lorrain inspired Stourhead and other English landscape gardens.
Castle Howard (1699–1712), a predecessor of the English garden modelled on the gardens of Versailles
Ionic Temple at Chiswick House in west London