9 o 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 £1000, 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 11, 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 
1812 and finished in 1820. Its length from Paddington 
to Limehouse is 8f- miles, and the total fall 84 feet. 
