Shotover House and gardens

Archive Notes:

Photos of the house and gardens from 1900s to 2024.

Two others can be found in record number 1554.

Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Shotover is the rare survival of a naturalistic garden, begun about 1718 and completed in the 1730s. Most of the original layout still remains. There are long avenues and cross-walks and a Gothic Temple of three arches surmounted by a battlemented pediment with finial (one of the earliest known buildings of the Gothic revival) closing a vista of formal gardens, with lakes, lawns and woods. William Kent, who has been called the ‘father of modern gardening’, designed the domed octagonal temple and the obelisk and may have planned part of the gardens, which attempt to make a break with geometrical formality and to introduce a more romantic relaxation.

The Gothic Temple was fully restored from 2014-2016 using grant funding from Natural England. A write-up of the use of Accoya wood for this is included.

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