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Where to see ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes
We care for 18 places with landscapes created by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown – a pioneering 18th-century gardener, designer and entrepreneur. Visit the best examples and lose yourself in landscapes with serpentine rivers, Gothic follies and sweeping drives.
- Ashridge Estate, Hertfordshire
- Brown was commissioned to work on Ashridge around 1760 by the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. The Golden Valley bears all the hallmarks of classic Brown, with sweeping vistas and rolling pastures fringed by woodland. His work was continued 50 years later during another phase of redevelopment by one of his students, Humphry Repton.Visit Ashridge’s Golden Valley
- Berrington Hall, Herefordshire
- In 1775, London banker Thomas Harley bought the Berrington estate. To display his wealth, Harley commissioned Brown to design the lay out of the park, which has spectacular views west towards Wales and the Black Mountains. It would turn out to be Brown’s final landscape and his skill can be seen in the park today – it's only now the oak and beech trees have matured that the park looks as he intended, more than 200 years later.Visit Berrington Hall
- Croome, Worcestershire
- Croome was Brown’s first large-scale project, often described as his 'first and favourite child'. It was commissioned in 1751 by the 6th Earl of Coventry, who became a friend. The extensive work swept away formal gardens, creating natural-looking parkland with temples and follies, carriage drives and a serpentine lake. Following the landscape designer’s death in 1783, the Earl erected a memorial by the lake at Croome to commemorate his work and ‘inimitable genius’.Visit Croome
- Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire
- Brown visited Dinefwr in 1775 and was asked to suggest improvements to the landscape. He recommended changes to the walls, fences and paths, combining fields into large meadows, moving the kitchen garden to the Home Farm at Little Newton, creating a new plantation and moving the Llandeilo entrance. Some of Brown’s proposals were carried out but others, such as creating a garden in the deer park, were ignored.Visit Dinefwr
- Hatfield Forest, Essex
- Most of Hatfield looks like a typical medieval hunting forest, but in the centre you can find an ornamental lake, non-native trees and the beautiful Shell House picnic shelter. This 18th-century pleasure ground was developed by the Houblon family from about 1746. In 1757 Brown designed an extension to the lake, but his plan was only partially implemented, becoming what is now the water lily-covered Decoy Lake.Visit Hatfield Forest
- Petworth, West Sussex
- When Charles Wyndham inherited the Petworth estate in 1750, he began a 12-year project to transform its unfashionable landscape. Brown replaced the formal garden with the serpentine ponds and rolling pastures that were becoming his signature style, and today Petworth is considered one of the best surviving examples of Brown's landscapes.Visit Petworth
- Stowe, Buckinghamshire
- Brown’s time at Stowe was influential for him both professionally and personally. As Head Gardener from 1742 he was able to experiment at Stowe, sculpting the large Grecian Valley with views out to the parkland in the naturalistic style that made him famous. Stowe was also his home for 10 years; he got married and started a family here, and lived in one of the Boycott Pavilions.Visit Stowe
- Wallington, Northumberland
- Brown grew up near Wallington and his daily walk to school in Cambo took him through the estate. Although he left Northumberland in 1739, he returned in the 1760s to advise Wallington’s owner, Sir Walter. He was responsible for designing the pleasure grounds at Rothley Lake and may also have contributed to the work in the East and West Woods.Visit Wallington
- Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire
- The North Park at Wimpole was created by Brown between 1768-72 from farmland criss-crossed by hedges and roads. Brown thinned or felled the old formal avenues, created open parkland planted with trees and transformed 17th-century fishponds into serpentine lakes. One of the most beautiful elements is the Gothic Tower, an extraordinary folly in the form of a sham castle designed to look like a picturesque medieval ruin.Visit Wimpole Estate
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