Immortalized by artist Thomas Robins, Painswick Rococo Garden’s restoration began in 1988. Photo credit: Annie Blick. Visit the website atwww.rococogarden.org.uk
By Julia Milano
Sometimes formal gardens disappear. Time is not kind to gardens that lack gardeners, water, weeding, and upkeep. The demise of historic landscapes is not only a loss of their plantings but of the people who planned, nurtured, and dreamed of them.
Sometimes it takes “garden detectives” to do the research and exploration necessary to prove the existence of a historic garden that is no longer visible. Designed in the 1740s as a whimsical pleasure garden, Painswick is such a garden.
The artist Thomas Robins was commissioned to paint Painswick House and its garden in 1748. In 1984, (236 years later) Timothy Mowl and Roger White attended an exhibition of Thomas Robins paintings and were inspired to write an article about Painswick’s Rococo Garden as it was shown in that painting. Their article was published in “Garden History.”
Lord and Lady Dickinson, then the owners of Painswick House, read the article and decided to embark on the major challenge of restoring the overgrown garden, which had been abandoned in the 1950s and planted with timber. The Painswick Rococo Garden Trust has worked diligently on its renovation since 1988.
Today, Painswick is an extensive multi-level garden replete with its original hillside follies, a large formal potager (vegetable garden), and drifts of snowdrops in early spring. Painswick Garden was lost through changing ownership and the shifting fortunes of its owners. It was found thanks to the painting in which it had been immortalized and is Britain’s only surviving Rococo Garden.
Julia Milano, a Garland County Horticulture Agent and GC Master Gardener, volunteers with GC Master Gardeners of the UofA Div. of Agriculture, Cooperative Ext. Service. Master Gardeners pool skills and resources to improve home horticulture, stimulate interest in plants and gardening, and encourage beautification. For more info, call 501-623-6841, email ashaffer@usda.edu, or visit FB: GarlandCountyMasterGardeners.
