The Italian Garden at Chiswick House

Abstract

After the long reign of landscape gardens in England one of the earliest instances of the revival of formal gardens was the Italian Garden at Chiswick House, laid out on the southern part of the garden of Moreton Hall, which the 6th Duke of Devonshire had bought in 1812. Samuel Ware built a 300-feet-long conservatory and Lewis Kennedy provided a design for the garden in early 1814. Kennedy's design was maintained for more than 40 years by Charles Edmunds, who assured that the garden was planted according to the latest fashions. It was initially planted in the mingled system with a range of perennials, but was one of the first gardens to experiment with massed planting of annuals in some of the beds. In 1880 its design was rationalised by the Marquess of Bute's gardener, Michael May, to make it easier to maintain. May's design included the restoration of a mingled planting scheme with a range of perennials, while massed planting of annuals was retained in some of the beds. In 1929 Chiswick House was acquired by Brentford and Chiswick Urban District Council; the mingled planting was once again replaced with the annual bedding schemes for which the Italian Garden was renowned; and in 1933 the conservatory was rebuilt by Messenger and Co. The layout of the beds, however, remained similar to the proposals of 1880 with minor modifications. In 1997 a Landscape Restoration Plan was accepted, which, while recognising the significance of the Kennedy design, proposed the repair of the May design. The restoration was completed in 2010.