Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress of India as the wife of King Edward VII. Her family had been obscure until 1852, when her father, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was chosen with the consent of the major European powers to succeed his distant cousin, Frederick VII, to the Danish throne. At the age of sixteen, she was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the heir apparent of Queen Victoria, they married eighteen months in 1863, the same year her father became king of Denmark as Christian IX and her brother was appointed to the vacant Greek throne as George I. She was Princess of Wales from 1863 to 1901, the longest anyone has held that title, became popular. Excluded from wielding any political power, she unsuccessfully attempted to sway the opinion of British ministers and her husband's family to favour Greek and Danish interests, her public duties were restricted to uncontroversial involvement in charitable work.
On the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Albert Edward became king-emperor as Edward VII, with Alexandra as queen-empress. She held the status until Edward's death in 1910, she distrusted her nephew, German Emperor Wilhelm II, supported her son George V during the First World War, in which Britain and its allies fought Germany. Princess Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia, or "Alix", as her immediate family knew her, was born at the Yellow Palace, an 18th-century town house at 18 Amaliegade, right next to the Amalienborg Palace complex in Copenhagen, her father was Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and her mother was Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Although she was of royal blood, her family lived a comparatively normal life, they did not possess great wealth. Hans Christian Andersen was invited to call and tell the children stories before bedtime. In 1848, King Christian VIII of Denmark died and his only son Frederick ascended the throne. Frederick was childless, had been through two unsuccessful marriages, was assumed to be infertile.
A succession crisis arose as Frederick ruled in both Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, the succession rules of each territory differed. In Holstein, the Salic law prevented inheritance through the female line, whereas no such restrictions applied in Denmark. Holstein, being predominantly German, called in the aid of Prussia. In 1852, the major European powers called a conference in London to discuss the Danish succession. An uneasy peace was agreed, which included the provision that Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg would be Frederick's heir in all his dominions and the prior claims of others were surrendered. Prince Christian was given the title Prince of Denmark and his family moved into a new official residence, Bernstorff Palace. Although the family's status had risen, there was little or no increase in their income and they did not participate in court life at Copenhagen as they refused to meet Frederick's third wife and former mistress, Louise Rasmussen, because she had an illegitimate child by a previous lover.
Alexandra shared a draughty attic bedroom with her sister, made her own clothes and waited at table along with her sisters. Alexandra and Dagmar were given swimming lessons by the Swedish pioneer of women's swimming, Nancy Edberg. At Bernstorff, Alexandra grew into a young woman, she was devout throughout her life, followed High Church practice. Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, were concerned with finding a bride for their son and heir, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, they enlisted the aid of their daughter, Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, in seeking a suitable candidate. Alexandra was not their first choice, since the Danes were at loggerheads with the Prussians over the Schleswig-Holstein Question and most of the British royal family's relations were German. After rejecting other possibilities, they settled on her as "the only one to be chosen". On 24 September 1861, Crown Princess Victoria introduced her brother Albert Edward to Alexandra at Speyer. A year on 9 September 1862 Albert Edward proposed to Alexandra at the Royal Castle of Laeken, the home of his great-uncle, King Leopold I of Belgium.
A few months Alexandra travelled from Denmark to Britain aboard the royal yacht Victoria and Albert II and arrived in Gravesend, Kent, on 7 March 1863. Sir Arthur Sullivan composed music for her arrival and Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote an ode in Alexandra's honour: Thomas Longley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, married the couple on 10 March 1863 at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle; the choice of venue was criticised widely. As the ceremony took place outside London, the press complained that large public crowds would not be able to view the spectacle. Prospective guests thought it awkward to get to and, as the venue was small, some people who had expected invitations were disappointed; the Danes were dismayed. The British court was still in mourning for Prince Albert, so ladies were restricted to wearing grey, lilac or mauve; as the couple left Windsor for their honeymoon at Osbo
Mortlake
Mortlake is a suburban district of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south bank of the River Thames between Kew and Barnes. It was part of Surrey and until 1965 was in the Municipal Borough of Barnes. For many centuries it had village status and extended far to the south, to include East Sheen and part of what is now Richmond Park, its Stuart and Georgian history was economically one of malting, farming, watermen and a great tapestry works. A London landmark, the former Mortlake Brewery or Stag Brewery, is on the edge of Mortlake; the Waterloo to Reading railway line runs through Mortlake, which has a pedestrianised riverside, two riverside pubs and a village green. The Boat Race finishes at Mortlake every March/April; the Mortlake and Barnes Common ward of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames has proved marginal. In the 2010 local elections local Liberal Democrats lost all three seats to local Conservatives, the latter forming an administration on Richmond Council; this remained the case until the 2018 local elections when the Liberal Democrats regained one of the three seats by a single vote.
The Liberal Democrats regained control of the Council. Richmond Park, the constituency which includes Mortlake, had changed from Liberal Democrat to Conservative in the 2010 general election, was recaptured by the Liberal Democrats in the 2016 by-election, reverted to Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith in the 2017 general election by a margin of only 45 votes; the London Assembly constituency South West, which includes Mortlake, is represented by former local councillor Tony Arbour. The place-name'Mortlake' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Mortelaga and Mortelage, a name with two possible derivations. If the second element is the Old English lacu meaning a stream the first element is likely the fish-name mort meaning a young salmon, hence'salmon stream'. If the second element is the dialect lag meaning a long, narrow marshy meadow the name means'Morta's meadow'. Mortlake lay in the hundred of Brixton. According to the Domesday Book, the manor and parish of Mortlage was held by Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury when its assets were: 25 hides.
It rendered a large £38 plus 4s 4d from 17 houses in London, 2s 3d from houses in Southwark and £1 from tolls at Putney per year to its feudal system overlords. The manor belonged to the Archbishops of Canterbury until the time of Henry VIII, when it passed by exchange to the Crown. From the early part of the 17th century until after the English Civil War, Mortlake was celebrated for the manufacture of tapestry, founded during the reign of James I at the Mortlake Tapestry Works. Mortlake was reduced by 732 acres when Richmond Park was created by Charles I in 1637. Other parishes lost smaller amounts of land to the new deer park. Colston House's forebear was built by Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex acquired by Edward Colston, major benefactor and investor to the port city of Bristol; this was pulled down in 1860. John Barber, Lord Mayor in 1733, a suspected Jacobite opposed to the'Georgian' House of Hanover but Member of Parliament for the City on the strength of his opposition to Walpole's protectionist excise scheme, was buried in Mortlake in 1741.
He had given land to extend the churchyard. Sir Henry Taylor, KCMG, the dramatic poet, lived in Mortlake in the 19th century. Sir John Barnard, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1737 and an MP, used public addresses and private campaigns to outstanding effect in supporting the government against the Jacobite movement in 1745. Since 1845, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race has had its finish point at Mortlake, marked by the University Boat Race stone just downstream of Chiswick Bridge. Several other important rowing races over the Championship Course either start or finish at the stone; the first National School in Mortlake was built providing compulsory education at primary level in 1869, followed by an infants school in 1890 and county level, into secondary level school in 1906. Katherine Jenkins, classical singer, lives in Mortlake. Mortlake's most famous former resident is John Dee, astronomer, astrologer and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, he lived at Mortlake from 1565 to 1595 except for the six years between 1583 and 1589 when he was travelling in Europe.
His house no longer exists but it became the Mortlake Tapestry Works and at the end of the 18th century was a girls' school. Sir Christopher Packe, Lord Mayor of London, lived in Mortlake in about 1655–60. John Partridge was apprenticed to a local shoemaker, he is buried there. The cemetery of St Mary Magdalen’s Roman Catholic Church Mortlake contains the tomb of the Victorian explorer and orientalist Sir Richard Burton. Former British Prime Minister Henry Addington who, as Lord Sidmouth, was Ranger of Richmond Park, after whom the park's Sidmouth Plantation is named, is buried at St Mary the Virgin Mortlake; the town is residential commuter town with a strong history of self-employed trades as it has traditionally centred its commerce on its foreshortened boundary, the Upper Richmond Road, arguably half part of East Sheen. Some businesses on the north side of the Upper Richmond Road make reference to the old ecclesiastical and ward boundaries supported by their still Mortlake side streets. East Sheen was once a manor in the parish of Mortlake and since early times an economic forum, now a dining and convenience hub of the two districts.
The Victoria County History's volume on Surrey, written from 1910 to 1912, does not list East Sheen as a parish
London River Services
London River Services Limited is a division of Transport for London, which manages passenger transport—leisure-oriented tourist services and commuter services—on the River Thames in London. It licenses the services of operators. River service had been a common means of transport in London for centuries, but died off in the early 1900s, as transportation was enhanced with a proliferation of bridges and tunnels. With these numerous north-south crossings of the Thames, no more than 300m wide as it runs through central London, the revival of river boat services in London therefore travel east or west along the Thames rather than across it; the decision to revive London's river service network moved forward in 1997 with the launch of “Thames 2000”, a £21-million project to regenerate the River Thames in time for the Millennium Celebrations and create new passenger transport services on the Thames. While the service is not as extensive as those of Hong Kong or Sydney, it has been growing: in 2007, more than 0.7 million commuters travelled by river on the Thames Clippers service, one of the numerous operators on the system.
By 2018, there were 21 different operators carrying daily commuter, charter, or sightseeing passengers to various combinations of the 33 piers on the system. Before the construction of London's bridges and the Underground, the River Thames had served as a major thoroughfare for centuries. Attempts to regulate the transport of passengers and goods began in 1197, when King Richard I sold the Crown's rights over the Thames to the City of London Corporation, which attempted to license boats on the river. In 1510 Henry VIII granted a licence to watermen that gave exclusive rights to carry passengers on the river, in 1555 an Act of Parliament set up the Company of Watermen and Lightermen to control traffic on the Thames. For centuries the only bridge across the Thames was London Bridge. Crossing the river by wherry was a common mode of transport. Passenger steamboats were introduced in 1815 and the use of the river as a means of public transport increased greatly. River services ran from Gravesend and Ramsgate via Greenwich and Woolwich into central London.
By the mid-1850s about 15,000 people per day travelled to work on steamboat services – twice the number of passengers on the newly emerging railways. With increased congestion on the river and other accidents became correspondingly more frequent, most notably with the Princess Alice disaster at Woolwich in 1878. While the introduction of large steamboats and bridge construction had taken business from the Thames watermen, the growth of the railways took passengers away from the steamboat services and the use of the river for public transport began a steady decline. River service companies struggled financially, in 1876 the five main boat companies merged to form the London Steamboat Company; the company ran a half-hourly service from Chelsea to Greenwich for eight years until it went bankrupt in 1884. River services continued under different management into the next century. Many of the Thames paddle steamers around this time were built by the Thames Ironworks at Bow Creek. In 1905 the London County Council launched its own public river transport service to complement its new tram network, acquiring piers and investing in a large fleet of 30 paddle-steamers.
Frequent services operated from Hammersmith to Greenwich. The LCC river service was not a success, it was shut down in 1907 after only two years' service. Numerous proposals for "river bus" services were considered throughout the 20th century, although the few that were realised were cancelled after a short time in service. During World War II, from 13 September 1940 to 2 November 1940, a temporary wartime river bus service was introduced, running every 20 minutes, between Westminster and Woolwich using converted pleasure cruisers provided by the Port of London Authority to replace train and trolleybus services which were disrupted by the bombing of the Blitz. London Transport bus inspectors and conductors checked the tickets on board the boats. With the move of the Port of London downstream in the 1960s, regular river transport was limited to a few sightseeing boats. In 1997 Secretary of State for Transport John Prescott launched Thames 2000, a £21-million project to regenerate the River Thames in time for the Millennium Celebrations and boost new passenger transport services on the Thames.
The centrepiece of these celebrations was to be the Millennium Dome, but there was a plan to provide a longer-term legacy of public transport boat services and piers on the river. The Cross-River Partnership, a consortium of local authorities, private sector organisations and voluntary bodies, recommended the creation of a public body to co-ordinate and promote river services; this agency, provisionally titled the Thames Piers Agency, would integrate boat services into other modes of public transport, take control of Thames piers from the Port of London Authority, commission the construction of new piers. The result was the formation in 1999 of London River Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London. Mayor Ken Livingstone's Transport Strategy for London 2005 stated that: The safe use
Cornwall
Cornwall is a county in South West England in the United Kingdom. The county is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar which forms most of the border between them. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain; the furthest southwestern point of Great Britain is Land's End. Cornwall has a population of 563,600 and covers an area of 3,563 km2; the county has been administered since 2009 by Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately; the administrative centre of Cornwall, its only city, is Truro. Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish diaspora, it retains a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history, is recognised as one of the Celtic nations. It was a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy; the Cornish nationalist movement contests the present constitutional status of Cornwall and seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative Cornish Assembly with powers similar to those in Wales and Scotland.
In 2014, Cornish people were granted minority status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, giving them recognition as a distinct ethnic group. First inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, Cornwall continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples, by Brythons with strong ethnic, linguistic and cultural links to Wales and Brittany the latter of, settled by Britons from the region. Mining in Cornwall and Devon in the south-west of England began in the early Bronze Age. Few Roman remains have been found in Cornwall, there is little evidence that the Romans settled or had much military presence there. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Cornwall was a part of the Brittonic kingdom of Dumnonia, ruled by chieftains of the Cornovii who may have included figures regarded as semi-historical or legendary, such as King Mark of Cornwall and King Arthur, evidenced by folklore traditions derived from the Historia Regum Britanniae.
The Cornovii division of the Dumnonii tribe were separated from their fellow Brythons of Wales after the Battle of Deorham in 577 AD, came into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex. The regions of Dumnonia outside of Cornwall had been annexed by the English by 838 AD. King Athelstan in 936 AD set the boundary between the English and Cornish at the high water mark of the eastern bank of the River Tamar. From the early Middle Ages and culture were shared by Brythons trading across both sides of the Channel, resulting in the corresponding high medieval Breton kingdoms of Domnonée and Cornouaille and the Celtic Christianity common to both areas. Tin mining was important in the Cornish economy. In the mid-19th century, the tin and copper mines entered a period of decline. Subsequently, china clay extraction became more important, metal mining had ended by the 1990s. Traditionally and agriculture were the other important sectors of the economy. Railways led to a growth of tourism in the 20th century.
Cornwall is noted for coastal scenery. A large part of the Cornubian batholith is within Cornwall; the north coast has many cliffs. The area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its long and varied coastline, its attractive villages, its many place-names derived from the Cornish language, its mild climate. Extensive stretches of Cornwall's coastline, Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; the modern English name Cornwall is a compound of two ancient demonyms coming from two different language groups: Corn- originates from the Brythonic tribe, the Cornovii. The Celtic word "kernou" is cognate with the English word "horn". -wall derives from the Old English exonym walh, meaning "foreigner" or "Roman". In the Cornish language, Cornwall is known as Kernow which stems from a similar linguistic background; the present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Mesolithic periods.
It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age people. According to John T. Koch and others, Cornwall in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age, in modern-day Ireland, Wales, France and Portugal. During the British Iron Age, like all of Britain, was inhabited by a Celtic people known as the Britons with distinctive cultural relations to neighbouring Brittany; the Common Brittonic spoken at the time developed into several distinct tongues, including Cornish, Breton and Pictish. The first account of Cornwall comes from the 1st-century BC Sicilian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus quoting or paraphrasing the 4th-century BCE geographer P
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London, forms part of Outer London and is the only London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the London Government Act 1963, it is divided into nineteen wards. The borough is home to The National Archives; the attractions of Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace, Twickenham Stadium and the WWT London Wetlands Centre are within its boundaries and draw domestic and international tourism. The borough is half parkland – large areas of London's open space fall within its boundaries, including Richmond Park, Kew Gardens, Bushy Park and Old Deer Park; the predominant other land use is residential. Most businesses within the borough consist of retail, property improvement/development and professional services. Parts of the borough, including Barnes, Richmond, St Margarets, Cambridge Park and Marble Hill, some areas of Twickenham and much of East Sheen rival Stanmore Hill and Kenley as the highest house-price districts and neighbourhoods in Outer London.
In 2006, research commissioned by a major mortgage lender found that, on the quantitative statistical indices used, the borough had the best quality of life in London and was in the top quarter of local authorities nationwide. A neighbouring authority in Surrey achieved the best quality of life in that report. Demography is a diverse picture as in all of London: each district should be looked at separately and those do not reflect all neighbourhoods. Whatever generalisations are used, "the fine-grained texture of London poverty" by its minutely localised geography must always be taken into account according to an influential poverty report of 2010. Richmond upon Thames has the lowest child poverty rates in London at 20% and contains at least one ward with an above-average level of working-age adults receiving out-of-work benefits but this borough – reflecting the best result – has two standard poverty indices of sixteen in which it is placed in the worst quarter of boroughs. Richmond is one of London's wealthiest boroughs on many measures.
It has the lowest rates of poverty, child poverty, low pay, child obesity and adults without level 3 qualifications of any London borough, according to a 2017 research project by Trust for London. London's German business and expatriate community is centred on this borough, which houses the German School London and most of the capital's German expatriates; the Local Authority divides the borough into fourteen loosely bounded neighbourhoods, or "villages", with which residents broadly identify. Some of the neighbourhoods have the same name as their associated political ward, but the boundaries aren't aligned. There is no direct alignment between these areas and postcode districts, which tend to cover much broader areas, crossing the borough boundaries. Although most addresses in the borough have TW postcodes, some have KT postcodes. Parks take up a great deal of the borough and include Richmond Park, Bushy Park, Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Park. There are over open spaces in Richmond upon Thames and 21 miles of river frontage.
140 hectares within the borough are designated as part of the Metropolitan Green Belt. The borough is home to the National Physical Laboratory and the attractions of Hampton Court Palace, Twickenham Stadium and the WWT London Wetlands Centre that draw domestic and international tourism; the river Thames becomes narrower than at any part of Inner London towards its flow into the borough and becomes non-tidal at Teddington Lock in the borough. The borough was formed in 1965 by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Twickenham from Middlesex with the Municipal Borough of Richmond and the Municipal Borough of Barnes from Surrey; the name "Richmond upon Thames" was coined at that time. The borough's history is reflected in the coat of arms, granted on 7 May 1966, it is: Ermine a portcullis or within a bordure gules charged with eight fleurs-de-lis or. The crest is: On a wreath argent and gules out of a mural crown gules a swan rousant argent in beak a branch of climbing red roses leaved and entwined about the neck proper.
The supporters are: On either side a griffin gules and beaked azure, each supporting an oar proper, the blade of the dexter dark blue and that of the sinister light blue. The portcullis was taken from the arms of the Municipal Borough of Richmond. Red and ermine are the royal livery colours, reflecting Richmond's royal history; the swan represents the River Thames. The oars are from the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, reflecting the fact that the Boat Race between the two universities ends at Mortlake in the borough. Since its formation, the council has most been led either by the Conservatives or by the Liberal Democrats; the Lib Dems make up the majority in the council. London Heathrow Airport is located a few kilometres west; the borough is served by many Transport for London bus routes. The borough is connected to central London and Reading by the National Rail services of the South Western Railway; the London Underground's District line serves Richmond and Kew Gardens stations: both are served by London Overground tra
William Kent
William Kent was an eminent English architect, landscape architect and furniture designer of the early 18th century. Kent introduced the Palladian style of architecture into England with the villa at Chiswick House, originated the'natural' style of gardening known as the English landscape garden at Chiswick, Stowe House in Buckinghamshire, Rousham House in Oxfordshire; as a landscape gardener he revolutionised the layout of estates, but had limited knowledge of horticulture. He complemented his houses and gardens with stately furniture for major buildings including Hampton Court Palace, Chiswick House, Devonshire House and Rousham. Kent was born in Bridlington and baptised, on 1 January 1686, as William Cant. Kent's career began as a sign and coach painter, encouraged to study art and architecture by his employer. A group of Yorkshire gentlemen sent Kent for a period of study in Rome, he set sail on 22 July 1709 from Deal, arriving at Livorno on 15 October. By 18 November he was in Florence, staying there until April 1710 before setting off for Rome.
In 1713 he was awarded the second medal in the second class for painting in the annual competition run by the Accademia di San Luca for his painting of A Miracle of S. Andrea Avellino, he met several important figures including Thomas Coke 1st Earl of Leicester, with whom he toured Northern Italy in the summer of 1714, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, for whom he painted some pictures, though no records survive. During his stay in Rome, he painted the ceiling of the church of San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi with the Apotheosis of St. Julian; the most significant meeting was between 3rd Earl of Burlington. Kent left Rome for the last time in the autumn of 1719, met Lord Burlington at Genoa, Kent journeying on to Paris, where Lord Burlington joined him for the final journey back to England before the end of the year; as a painter, he displaced Sir James Thornhill in decorating the new staterooms at Kensington Palace, London. Kent started practising as an architect late, in the 1730s, he is better remembered as an architect of the revived Palladian style in England.
Burlington gave him the task of editing The Designs of Inigo Jones... with some additional designs in the Palladian/Jonesian taste by Burlington and Kent, which appeared in 1727. As he rose through the royal architectural establishment, the Board of Works, Kent applied this style to several public buildings in London, for which Burlington's patronage secured him the commissions: the Royal Mews at Charing Cross, the Treasury buildings in Whitehall, the Horse Guards building in Whitehall; these neo-antique buildings were inspired as much by the architecture of Raphael and Giulio Romano as by Palladio. In country house building, major commissions for Kent were designing the interiors of Houghton Hall built by Colen Campbell for Sir Robert Walpole, but at Holkham Hall the most complete embodiment of Palladian ideals is still to be found. Walpole's son Horace described Kent as below mediocrity as a painter, a restorer of science as an architect and the father of modern gardening and inventor of an art.
A theatrically Baroque staircase and parade rooms in London, at 44 Berkeley Square, are notable. Kent's domed pavilions were erected at Euston Hall. Kent could provide sympathetic Gothic designs, free of serious antiquarian tendencies, when the context called, he worked on the house at 22 Arlington Street in St. James's, a district of the City of Westminster in central London from 1743, when it was commissioned by the newly elevated Prime Minister, Henry Pelham; when Kent died, the work was completed by Stephen Wright. As a landscape designer, Kent was one of the originators of the English landscape garden, a style of "natural" gardening that revolutionised the laying out of gardens and estates, his projects included Chiswick House, Buckinghamshire, from about 1730 onwards, designs for Alexander Pope's villa garden at Twickenham, for Queen Caroline at Richmond, notably at Rousham House, where he created a sequence of Arcadian set-pieces punctuated with temples, grottoes, Palladian bridges and exedra, opening the field for the larger scale achievements of Capability Brown in the following generation.
Smaller Kent works can be found at Shotover Park, including a faux Gothic eyecatcher and a domed pavilion. His all-but-lost gardens at Claremont, have been restored, it is said that he was not above planting dead trees to create the mood he required. Kent's only real downfall was said to be his lack of horticultural knowledge and technical skill, but his naturalistic style of design was his major contribution to the history of landscape design. Claremont and Rousham are places where their joint efforts can be viewed. Stowe and Rousham are Kent's most famous works. At the latter, Kent elaborated on Bridgeman's 1720s design for the property, adding walls and arches to catch the viewer's eye. At Stowe, Kent u
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