90 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



and country lanes and hedgerows. White's idea com- 

 mended itself to Fordyce, and he approached the Treasury 

 on the subject. The total area, according to the survey 

 in 1794, was 543 ac. 17 p. This was disposed chiefly 

 between three farms of about 288, 133, and 117 acres 

 respectively. From the first all the plans embraced 

 extensive buildings, as well as a proportion of park. 

 Inspired by Fordyce, the Treasury offered a prize, not 

 exceeding _^iooo, for the best design, and several were 

 submitted. Fordyce aimed at something between the 

 most extreme votaries of the landscape school and the 

 older, debased, formal styles — a compromise which Loudon 

 was at that time trying to bring into vogue. A " union 

 of the ancient and modern styles of planting," he called it, 

 which led by stages to the Italian parterres and brilliant 

 bedding out of the early Victorian gardens. Fordyce 

 did not live to see any plan put into execution. At his 

 death the Surveyor-General of Land Revenues and the 

 Commissioners of Woods and Forests were amalgamated, 

 and Leverton and Chawner, architects to the former, and 

 Nash, architect to the latter, submitted designs — Nash's 

 being eventually accepted. The other design cut up the 

 whole ground into ornamental villas with pleasure 

 grounds, with a sort of village green or central square, 

 with a church in the middle, and a site for a market and 

 barracks. White's views were more like Nash's in some 

 respects, as he had artificial water and a drive round the 

 Park. The lease held by the Duke of Portland fell in, 

 in 18 r I, and soon after the work of carrying out Nash's 

 design was begun by James Morgan. The Regent's 

 Park Canal was included in the same plan, and begun in 

 I 8 12 and finished in 1820. Its length from Paddington 

 to Limehouse is 8|- miles, and the total fall 84 feet. 



