Olly Buckle
The summer house.
by , February 17th, 2017 at 11:20 AM (1650 Views)
There was a program about ‘Capability’ Brown on the television, visiting various of his landscape gardens. I am unsure which, but one of them had a ‘Summer house’. Of course it was no wooden shack at the bottom of the garden, but an imposing building with spires and French windows, probably larger than the average terrace house, Well, that was how it looked across the valley on the other side of a lake; distant, set on the edge of woodland.
One approached it, however, from behind, through grassy glades and winding woodland paths emerging suddenly at the back of the building, which filled the end of a glade. Massive, solid, with a porticoed doorway, windowless, and shaded by the trees, it presented an almost grim aspect. Enter the building and passing through and it was a different world, French windows, sunlight, a great sweep of grass, the lake, ornamental cedars, and the hill opposite, more grass ascending to forest. The contrast to the approach through confined glades and narrow paths was, of course, intentional; ‘Capability’ was an epithet, not his given name.
As a writer the thought struck me, ‘What a beautiful physical model for a well planned plot’. I suppose the same could be seen in any well composed work of art, but gardens are my thing and I saw it there.
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