Painshill
Painshill, near Cobham, England, is one of the finest remaining examples of an 18th-century English landscape park. It was created between 1738 and 1773 by the Hon. Charles Hamilton; the original house built in the park by Hamilton has since been demolished. Painshill is managed by the Painshill Trust. Painshill, open to the public, has been Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. In 1998 Painshill was awarded the Europa Nostra Medal for the "Exemplary restoration from a state of extreme neglect, of a most important 18th century landscape park and its extraordinary buildings." In May 2006, Painshill was awarded full collection status for its John Bartram Heritage Collection, by the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens. Charles Hamilton was born in 1704 in the 9th son and 14th child of the 6th Earl of Abercorn, he was educated at Westminster School and Oxford, went on two Grand Tours, one in 1725 and a further one in 1732. In 1738 Hamilton began to acquire land at Painshill and, over the years, built up a holding of more than 200 acres.
His creation was among the earliest to reflect the changing fashion in garden design prompted by the Landscape Movement, which started in England in about 1730. It represented the move away from geometric formality in garden design to a new naturalistic formula. Many of the trees and shrubs planted by Hamilton were sent to him from Philadelphia by the naturalist John Bartram; the garden was open to respectable visitors, who were shown round by the head gardener for a tip, was visited by many well-known figures including two visits by William Gilpin, pioneer of the Picturesque, Thomas Jefferson with John Adams, Prince Franz of Anhalt-Dessau separately, on special tours of gardens, the important landscape garden author Thomas Whately. As now there was a particular route round the park recommended, designed to bring the visitor upon the successive views with best effect. Views from Painshill were painted on plates for a Wedgwood service of porcelain commissioned by Catherine the Great of Russia.
Hamilton ran out of money and sold the estate in 1773 to Benjamin Bond Hopkins, who held the estate until his death in 1794. In 1778 Hopkins commissioned architect Richard Jupp to rebuild Painshill House in a different location within the park; the house was extended in the 19th century by architect Decimus Burton and is now a grade II* listed building. Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton bought Painshill in 1807 from William Moffat. Luttrell lived at Painshill after having fled from the magnificent ancestral Luttrellstown Castle near Clonsilla outside Dublin, where his notorious role in crushing the Irish Rebellion in 1798 made it unsafe to stay. After his death in 1821, Luttrell's wife Jane lived at Painshill until her death in 1831 when it was sold it to Sir William Cooper, High Sheriff of Surrey. Sir William Cooper and his wife his widow, lived there until 1863, installed Joseph Bramah's suspension bridge and water wheel, planted an arboretum designed by John Claudius Loudon. In 1873, the English poet and social critic, Matthew Arnold, rented Pains Hill Cottage from Mr. Charles J. Leaf and lived there until his death in 1888.
In 1904 Charles Combe of Cobham Park purchased and lived in Painshill Park, his son having moved into Cobham Park. Until World War II Painshill Park was held by a succession of private owners. In 1948 the estate was sold in separate lots for commercial uses; the Park, as such, soon disappeared and its features fell into decay. By 1980 the local authority, Elmbridge Borough Council, had bought 158 acres of Hamilton's original estate and the work of restoring the landscape garden and its many features could start. In the following year the Painshill Park Trust was founded as a registered charity with the remit "to restore Painshill as nearly as possible to Charles Hamilton's Original Concept of a Landscaped Garden for the benefit of the public." There is a wealth of 18th-century images of the main features of Painshill to help the process. The restoration of this Grade I landscape is continuing, in 2013 work was completed on the restoration of the Crystal Grotto, further restoration work in the park is dependent on the availability of funding.
The landscape garden continues to be a favourite location for film and television production, such as for the grounds of "Bridgeford University" in Trinity and the exteriors in the latest movie adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 2017, Painshill Park was featured in the science fiction television series Black Mirror, episode "Hang the DJ"; the park now borders the A3 road, invisible and inaudible from nearly all parts, but allows easy access. Today Painshill comprises 158 acres of the original more than 200 acres owned by Charles Hamilton in the 18th century; the landscape garden stretches along the banks of the winding River Mole on land that has a number of natural hills and valleys. The central feature is a serpentine lake of 14 acres with several islands and spanned by bridges and a causeway; the water for the lake and the plantings is pumped from the River Mole by a 19th-century beam engine powered by a water wheel. Hamilton enhanced the views of hills and lake by careful plantings of woods and specimen trees to create vistas and a number of discreet environments which include an amphitheatre, a water
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, is bordered on the south by the Wicklow Mountains, it has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region, as of 2016, was 1,347,359, the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806. There is archaeological debate regarding where Dublin was established by the Gaels in or before the 7th century AD. Expanded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin, the city became Ireland's principal settlement following the Norman invasion; the city expanded from the 17th century and was the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800. Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State renamed Ireland. Dublin is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts and industry; as of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha −", which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world.
The name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, from dubh meaning "black, dark", lind "pool", referring to a dark tidal pool. This tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, Irish rhymes from County Dublin show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn; the original pronunciation is preserved in the names for the city in other languages such as Old English Difelin, Old Norse Dyflin, modern Icelandic Dyflinn and modern Manx Divlyn as well as Welsh Dulyn. Other localities in Ireland bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin and Difflin. Scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b, rendering Duḃlinn or Duiḃlinn; those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh, part of Loch Linnhe.
It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, from which Dyflin took its name. Beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements; the Viking settlement of about 841, a Gaelic settlement, Áth Cliath further up river, at the present day Father Mathew Bridge, at the bottom of Church Street. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning "town of the hurdled ford", is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a place name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street occupied by Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church. There are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Anglicised as Hurlford; the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times, but the writings of Ptolemy in about AD 140 provide the earliest reference to a settlement there.
He called it Eblana polis. Dublin celebrated its'official' millennium in 1988, meaning the Irish government recognised 988 as the year in which the city was settled and that this first settlement would become the city of Dublin, it is now thought the Viking settlement of about 841 was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, from which Dyflin took its name. Beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements which became the modern Dublin; the subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay. The Dubhlinn was a pool on the lowest stretch of the Poddle, used to moor ships; this pool was fully infilled during the early 18th century, as the city grew. The Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library within Dublin Castle. Táin Bó Cuailgne refers to Dublind rissa ratter Áth Cliath, meaning "Dublin, called Ath Cliath". Dublin was established as a Viking settlement in the 10th century and, despite a number of attacks by the native Irish, it remained under Viking control until the Norman invasion of Ireland was launched from Wales in 1169.
It was upon the death of Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn in early 1166 that Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, King of Connacht, proceeded to Dublin and was inaugurated King of Ireland without opposition. According to some historians, part of the city's early economic growth is attributed to a trade in slaves. Slavery in Ireland and Dublin reached its pinnacle in the 10th centuries. Prisoners from slave raids and kidnappings, which captured men and children, brought revenue to the Gaelic Irish Sea raiders, as well as to the Vikings who had initiated the practice; the victims came from Wales, England and beyond. The King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, after his exile by Ruaidhrí, enlisted the help of Strongbow, the Earl of Pembroke, to conquer Dublin. Following Mac Murrough's death, Strongbow declared himself King of Leinster after gaining control of the city. In response to Strongbow's successful invasion, King Henry II of England affirmed his ultimate sovereignty by mou
Wilton House
Wilton House is an English country house at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire. It has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years; the first recorded building on the site of Wilton House was a priory founded by King Egbert circa 871. Through the munificence of King Alfred, the priory was granted lands and manors until it became wealthy and powerful. However, by the time Wilton Abbey was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries set in motion by King Henry VIII, its prosperity was on the wane. Following the seizure of the abbey, Henry presented it and its attached estates to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke c. 1544. William Herbert, the scion of a distinguished family in the Welsh marches, was a favourite of the king. Following a recommendation to King Henry by King Francis I of France, whom Herbert had served as a soldier of fortune, Herbert was granted arms after only two years. In 1538, Herbert married Anne Parr, daughter of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal and sister of the future queen consort Catherine Parr and Sir William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal.
The granting of an estate such as the Abbey of Wilton to Herbert was an accolade and evidence of his position at court. The first grants dated March and April 1542, include the site of the late monastery, the manor of Washerne adjoining the manors of Chalke; these were given to "William Herbert and Anne his wife for the term of their lives with certain reserved rents to King Henry VIII." When Edward VI re-granted the manors to the family, it was explicitly "to the aforenamed Earl, by the name of Sir William Herbert and the Lady Anne his wife and the heirs male of their bodies between them lawfully begotten." Lady Anne had been a joint creator of the enterprise. Herbert began to transform the deserted abbey into a fine house and symbol of his wealth, it had been thought that the old abbey had been demolished. It has long been claimed, without proof, that Hans Holbein the Younger re-designed the abbey as a rectangular house around a central courtyard, the core of the present house. Holbein died in 1543, so his designs for the new house would have had to be speedily executed.
However, the great entrance porch to the new mansion, removed from the house and transformed into a garden pavilion in the 19th century, is to this day known as the "Holbein Porch" — a perfect example of the blending of the older Gothic and the brand-new Renaissance style. If not by Holbein, it is by the hand of a great master. Whoever the architect, a great mansion arose. Today only one other part of the Tudor mansion survives: the great tower in the centre of the east facade. With its central arch and three floors of oriel windows above, the tower is reminiscent of the entrance at Hampton Court. Flanked today by two wings in a loose Georgian style – each topped by an Italianate pavilion tower, this Tudor centrepiece of the facade appears not in the least incongruous displaying the accepted appearance of a great English country house, which has evolved over the centuries; the Tudor house built by William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, in 1551 lasted 80 years. On the succession of the 4th Earl in 1630, he decided to pull down the southern wing and erect a new complex of staterooms in its place.
It is now that the second great name associated with Wilton appears: Inigo Jones. The architecture of the south front is in severe Palladian style, described at the time as in the "Italian Style. While the remainder of the house is on three floors of equal value in the English style, the south front has a low rusticated ground floor suggesting a semi-basement. Three small porches project at this level only, one at the centre, one at each end of the facade, providing small balconies to the windows above; the next floor is the piano nobile, at its centre the great double-height Venetian window, ornamented at second floor level by the Pembroke arms in stone relief. This central window is flanked by four tall sash windows on each side; these windows have low flat pediments. Each end of the facade is defined by "corner stone" decoration giving a suggestion that the single-bay wings project forward; the single windows here are topped by a true pointed pediment. Above this floor is a further mezzanine floor, its small unpedimented windows aligning with the larger below, serve to emphasise the importance of the piano nobile.
The roofline is hidden by a balustrade. Each of the terminating'wings' is crowned by a one-storey, pedimented tower resembling a Palladian pavilion. At the time, his style was an innovation. Just thirty years earlier, Montacute House, exemplifying the English Renaissance, had been revolutionary. Attributing the various architectural stages can be difficult, the degree to which Inigo Jones was involved has been questioned. Queen Henrietta Maria, a frequent guest at Wilton, interrogated Jones about his work there. At the time he was employed by her, it seems at this time Jones was too busy with his royal clients and did no more than provide a few sketches for a mansion, which he delegated for execution to an assistant Isaac de Caus, a Frenchman and landscape gardener from Diepp
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively; the fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to: Set the map's agenda and select traits of the object to be mapped. This is the concern of map editing. Traits may be physical, such as roads or land masses, or may be abstract, such as toponyms or political boundaries. Represent the terrain of the mapped object on flat media; this is the concern of map projections. Eliminate characteristics of the mapped object that are not relevant to the map's purpose; this is the concern of generalization. Reduce the complexity of the characteristics that will be mapped; this is the concern of generalization. Orchestrate the elements of the map to best convey its message to its audience; this is the concern of map design. Modern cartography constitutes many theoretical and practical foundations of geographic information systems.
What is the earliest known map is a matter of some debate, both because the term "map" is not well-defined and because some artifacts that might be maps might be something else. A wall painting that might depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE. Among the prehistoric alpine rock carvings of Mount Bego and Valcamonica, dated to the 4th millennium BCE, geometric patterns consisting of dotted rectangles and lines are interpreted in archaeological literature as a depiction of cultivated plots. Other known maps of the ancient world include the Minoan "House of the Admiral" wall painting from c. 1600 BCE, showing a seaside community in an oblique perspective, an engraved map of the holy Babylonian city of Nippur, from the Kassite period. The oldest surviving world maps are from 9th century BCE Babylonia. One shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by Assyria and several cities, all, in turn, surrounded by a "bitter river". Another depicts Babylon as being north of the center of the world.
The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps from the time of Anaximander in the 6th century BCE. In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy wrote his treatise on Geographia; this contained Ptolemy's world map – the world known to Western society. As early as the 8th century, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic. In ancient China, geographical literature dates to the 5th century BCE; the oldest extant Chinese maps come from the State of Qin, dated back to the 4th century BCE, during the Warring States period. In the book of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection. Although this method of charting seems to have existed in China before this publication and scientist, the greatest significance of the star maps by Su Song is that they represent the oldest existent star maps in printed form. Early forms of cartography of India included depictions of the pole star and surrounding constellations.
These charts may have been used for navigation. "Mappae mundi are the medieval European maps of the world. About 1,100 of these are known to have survived: of these, some 900 are found illustrating manuscripts and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents; the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi produced his medieval atlas Tabula Rogeriana in 1154. By combining the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East with the information he inherited from the classical geographers, he was able to write detailed descriptions of a multitude of countries. Along with the substantial text he had written, he created a world map influenced by the Ptolemaic conception of the world, but with significant influence from multiple Arab geographers, it remained the most accurate world map for the next three centuries. The map was divided with detailed descriptions of each zone; as part of this work, a smaller, circular map was made depicting the south on top and Arabia in the center. Al-Idrisi made an estimate of the circumference of the world, accurate to within 10%.
In the Age of Exploration, from the 15th century to the 17th century, European cartographers both copied earlier maps and drew their own, based on explorers' observations and new surveying techniques. The invention of the magnetic compass and sextant enabled increasing accuracy. In 1492, Martin Behaim, a German cartographer, made the oldest extant globe of the Earth. In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced a globular world map and a large 12-panel world wall map bearing the first use of the name "America". Portuguese cartographer Diego Ribero was the author of the first known planisphere with a graduated Equator. Italian cartographer Battista Agnese produced at least 71 manuscript atlases of sea charts. Johannes Werner promoted the Werner projection; this was an equal-area, heart-shaped world map projection, used in the 16th and 17th centuries. Over time, other iterations of this map type arose; the Werner projection places its standard parallel at the North Pole. In 1569, mapmaker Gerardus Mercato
Claremont (country house)
Claremont known as'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building; the first house on the Claremont estate was built in 1708 by Sir John Vanbrugh, the Restoration playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, for his own use. This "very small box", as he described it, stood on the level ground in front of the present mansion. At the same time, he built the stables and the walled gardens probably White Cottage, now the Sixth Form Centre of Claremont Fan Court School. In 1714 he sold the house to the wealthy Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who became Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime Minister; the earl commissioned Vanbrugh to add two great wings to the house and to build a fortress-like turret on an adjoining knoll.
From this so-called "prospect-house", or belvedere, he and his guests could admire the views of the Surrey countryside as they took refreshments and played hazard, a popular dice game. In the clear eighteenth-century air it was possible to see Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral; the Earl of Clare named his country seat Clare-mount contracted to Claremont. The two lodges at the Copsem Lane entrance were added at this time. Claremont landscape garden is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th century layout; the extensive landscaped grounds of Claremont represents the work of some of the best known landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, William Kent and Sir John Vanbrugh. Work on the gardens began around 1715, by 1727 they were described as "the noblest of any in Europe". Within the grounds, overlooking the lake, is an unusual turfed amphitheatre. A feature in the grounds is the Belvedere Tower, designed by Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle.
The tower is unusual in that what appear to be windows, are bricks painted black and white. It is now owned by Claremont Fan Court School, situated alongside the gardens. In 1949 the landscape garden was donated to the National Trust for protection. A restoration programme was launched in 1975 following a significant donation by the Slater Foundation; the garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. When the Duke of Newcastle died in 1768, his widow sold the estate to Robert Clive, founder of Britain's Indian Empire. Although the great house was little more than fifty years old, it was aesthetically and politically out of fashion. Lord Clive decided to demolish the house and commissioned Lancelot "Capability" Brown to build the present Palladian mansion on higher and dryer ground. Brown, more accomplished as a landscape designer than architect, took on his future son-in-law Henry Holland as a junior partner owing to the scale of the project. John Soane Sir John Soane, was employed in Holland's office at this time and worked on the project as a draftsman and junior designer.
Holland's interiors for Claremont owe much to the contemporary work of Robert Adam. Clive, by now a fabulously rich nabob, is reputed to have spent over £100,000 on rebuilding the house and a complete remodelling of the celebrated pleasure grounds. However, Clive never lived here; the estate passed through a rapid succession of owners, being first sold'for not more than one third of what the house and alterations had cost', to Viscount Galway to the Earl of Tyrconnel and to Charles Rose Ellis. A large map now situated in "Clive's room" of the mansion is entitled "Claremont Palace"; the map dates back to the 1860s when the mansion was occupied by Queen Victoria, thus it being christened a palace. In 1816 Claremont was bought by the British Nation by an Act of Parliament as a wedding present for George IV's daughter Princess Charlotte and her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. At that time the estate was valued to Parliament at 60,000 pounds: "Mr Huskisson stated that it had been agreed to purchase the house and demesnes of Clermont...
The valuation of the farms, farm-houses, park, including 350 acres of land, was 36,000/. The mansion, in good repair, could not be built now for less than 91,000/." To the nation's great sorrow, Princess Charlotte, second in line to the throne, after two miscarriages, to die there after giving birth to a stillborn son in November the following year. Although Leopold retained ownership of Claremont until his death in 1865, he left the house in 1831 when he became the first King of the Belgians. Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor to Claremont both as a child and as an adult when Leopold, her doting uncle, lent her the house. She, in turn, lent the house to the exiled French king and queen Louis-Philippe and Marie-Amelie after the revolutions of 1848. In 1870, Queen Victoria commissioned Francis John Williamson to sculpt a marble memorial to Charlotte and Leopold, erected inside the house. Victoria bought Claremont for her fourth and youngest son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, when he married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882.
The Duke and Duchess of Albany had two children -- Charles. In 19
Wrest Park
Wrest Park is a country estate located in Silsoe, England. It comprises Wrest Park, a Grade I listed country house, Wrest Park Gardens Grade I listed, formal gardens surrounding the mansion. Thomas Carew wrote his country house poem "To My Friend G. N. from Wrest" in 1639 that described the old house, demolished between 1834 and 1840. The present house was built in 1834–39, to designs by its owner Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, an amateur architect and the first president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, inspired by buildings he had seen on trips to Paris, he based his house on designs published in French architectural books such as Jacques-François Blondel's Architecture Française. The works were superintended as clerk of works on site by James Clephan, clerk of the works at the Liddell seat, Ravensworth Castle in County Durham, had served as professional amanuensis and builder for Lord Barrington. Although Nikolaus Pevsner stated that Clephan was a French architect who designed the present house instead of De Grey the amateur architect, as Charles Read has shown in his biography of De Grey, Clephan in fact only produced drawings of the service infrastructure, such as plumbing and drainage.
The decorative layout and features of the house were produced by De Grey's own hand. Wrest has some of the earliest Rococo Revival interiors in England. Reception rooms in the house are open to the public. Nan Ino Cooper ran Wrest Park as a military hospital during World War I, though a fire in September 1916 halted this usage of the house. In 1917, following the death of her brother Auberon Herbert, 9th Baron Lucas, she inherited the house and sold it one year later. Wrest Park has an early eighteenth-century garden, spread over 92 acres, originally laid out by George London and Henry Wise for Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent modified by Lancelot "Capability" Brown in a more informal landscape style; the park is divided by a wide gravel central walk, continued as a long canal that leads to a Baroque pavilion banqueting house designed by Thomas Archer and completed in 1711. The interior of the pavilion is decorated with an impressive Ionic columns in trompe-l'œil. Boundary canals were altered to take the more natural shape by Capability Brown, who worked there between 1758 and 1760, who ringed the central formal area with a canal and woodland.
The gardens and garden houses were mapped by John Rocque in 1735. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Bath House, an orangery and marble fountains were added. A Wellingtonia planted in 1856 was in its earlier years brought into the house annually to serve as a Christmas tree, one of the earliest surviving examples known in the U. K. In the autumn of 2007 English Heritage announced that the Wolfson Foundation had pledged up to £400,000 towards the restoration of a number of the key features of the Wrest Park estate, including the mansion's formal entrance area, the garden statuary and gates, to alter the height of the carriage drive. In the next phases the lakes and canals will be restored. On 12 September 2008 English Heritage unveiled extensive plans to restore the Grade-I-listed Wrest Park house and gardens to their original splendour. In 2008 the music video for "The Fear" by Lily Allen featured interior as well as exterior scenes of Wrest Park. In July 2010 English Heritage announced that it had secured over £1m from the Heritage Lottery Fund to develop a new visitors centre, car parking, exhibition space and accessible paths.
Work was completed in summer 2011 and the park opened to the public on 4 August 2011. There is a memorial column dedicated to Lancelot "Capability" Brown, it was placed near the Bowling Green House, remodelled by Batty Langley in 1735, but is now located in the eastern part of the gardens. The column has the inscription: "These gardens laid out by Henry Duke of Kent, were altered by Philip Earl of Hardwicke and Jemima Marchioness Grey with the professional assistance of Lancelot Brown Esq. in the years 1758, 1759, 1760." The house was used as a location in the video for the 2008 song "The Fear" by Lily Allen. In August 2013 the park was a venue for a concert by rock band Status Quo; the opening sequence and press shots for the special series of Strictly Come Dancing,"The People's Strictly for Comic Relief", which aired in 2015, were filmed at Wrest Park. A 2016 episode of BBC's Flog It!, which aired on 16 March, was filmed at the park. De Grey Mausoleum Nicola Smith, Wrest Park, London: English Heritage, ISBN 1-85074-481-5 Linda Cabe Halpern, Wrest Park 1686–1730s: exploring Dutch influences in Garden History Journal, Vol 30.
No 2 Jean O’Neill, John Rocque as a guide to gardens in Garden History Journal, Vol 16, Np 1 James Collett-White, Inventories of Bedfordshire Country Houses 1714-1830 in Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, Vol 74, 1995 Charles Read, Earl de Grey, London: Willow Historical Monographs, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9555693-0-2 A. F. Cirket, The Earl de Grey's account of the building of Wrest House in Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, Volume 59, 1980 ISSN 0307-1243 Wrest Park's page at English Heritage Heritage Lottery fund announcement July 2010
