265 



LANCELOT BROWN was born at Kirkharle in Northum- 

 berland in 1715. His first employment was as kitchen Gar- 

 dener, to a gentleman near Woodstock, and though he moved 

 afterwards to Stowe, and continued there until 1750, Lord 

 Cobham confined his exertions to that department. That no- 

 bleman however recommended him to the Duke of Grafton -who 

 appointed him his chief Gardener, at Wakefield Lodge, North- 

 amptonshire, where his judicious formation of a Lake first 

 brought him into notice as a designer. Lord Cobham still con- 

 tinued his patron and obtained for him the Royal Gardenership 

 at Hampton Court and Windsor. He was now consulted by all 

 the nobility and gentry, amongst other places he was employed 

 at Blenheim, whereby his easy completion in a week of one of 

 the finest artificial lakes in the world, and other improvements, 

 he rose to the acme of popularity, and the fashion of employing 

 him continued until the period of his death which occurred in 

 1783. He had filled the office of High Sheriff for the counties 

 of Huntingdon and Cambridge in 1770, having amassed a very 

 large fortune, and become a leading man in his county. He 

 never went out of England, neither did he ever contract to exe- 

 cute his plans. He employed assistants to draw his desio-ns, 

 which were applied for not only in this country but in Scotland, 

 Ireland and even Russia. Repton has given a list of his prin- 

 cipal creations, of which Croome Court, in Worcestershire, and 

 Fisherwick in Warwickshire, now destroyed, were the largest. 

 The places he only altered it is impossible to ascertain. Im- 

 provement, says Loudon, was the passion of the day; and 

 there was scarcely a country gentleman who did not on some 

 occasion consult him.* 



The leading outlines of his plans were easily copied, and imi- 

 tators innumerable arose to supply the demand for designs; the 

 spade and axe were at Avork in every estate, and so rapidly did 

 the face of the country alter that in 1772 Sir W. Chambers de- 



* Eiicyclopccd. of Gardening, p. 76. Ed. 5. 



