Gardens Exhibition 2017: Vistas of vast extension
“Ralph first Duke of Montagu has so much embellished by the grand gardens, by an extensive canal, by the large ponds, by the extraordinary water jets, by a waterfall that outshines any in Italy and in France.” – Michel le Vassor – from his Histoire du Regne de Louis XIII , 1705
Don’t miss Boughton’s exclusive Gardens Exhibition in the House’s extraordinary 17th century “Unfinished Wing”, available to private groups from July 2017 and the general public daily in August.
Using contemporary poetry, detailed eye witness accounts, drawings and plans, the exhibition traces the story of a vast and remarkable garden from its first stirrings in Elizabethan times, through its audacious rivalry of Versailles, its eventual slumber and modern-day re-birth with “Orpheus”, Kim Wilkie’s celebrated landform.
Drawing on the extensive Buccleuch collection the “Stewards’ Hall” exhibition celebrates horticulture in all its forms. You’ll discover some of the earliest English books on gardening, Sir Hans Sloane’s 1687 plant-collecting “Voyage to Jamaica”, French flower paintings, spectacular English and French botanical porcelain, a series of little-known images of the idealised rococo garden and an early gardener’s contract on vellum.
