Edmund Burke had set a philosophical hare running with his 1757 essay An Inquiry into our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. Artists -
including garden designers - spent much effort debating these concepts. Later in the century a new category emerged, supposedly partway
between the controlled terror of the Sublime and the gentle perfection of the Beautiful: the Picturesque, describing something worthy of being
put into a picture, or like one.
A Herefordshire gentleman and heir to an iron fortune, Richard Payne Knight, made his contribution to this debate in 1805 with his book An
Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste. It was these ideas that were expressed in Downton. However, his earlier claim to - well, if not
fame, then notoriety - was the publication in 1786 of An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, a scholarly survey of the reverence
of the phallus in antiquity, printed complete with a frontispiece of a charming range of archaeological willies. That he never married somehow
comes as no surprise.
On inheriting Downton in 1772 Mr Knight set about rebuilding the house as a Gothic castle. It stood high above the waters of the Teme which,
for the most part, cut a dramatic gorge through the Herefordshire hills - just the same sort of environment we encounter in other Gothic
Gardens. Walks, climbing to and fro along the riverside, dramatic bridges, and a cold bath made their appearance, watched over by the castle
itself from its more decorous parkland surroundings. The keynote was the possibilities of the natural environment, rather than nutty follies, but
the form of the landscape skewed the exercise more towards the Sublime than the Beautiful, as such: 'Where sympathy with terror is
combined/to move, to melt, and elevate the mind' - as Knight himself wrote in his 1784 poem, The Landscape.
Nowadays the Castle is owned privately (by someone who reputedly only visits once a year) and most of Downton Walks is a nature reserve
with no public access, so we can only gain glimpses of this Gothic Garden.
including garden designers - spent much effort debating these concepts. Later in the century a new category emerged, supposedly partway
between the controlled terror of the Sublime and the gentle perfection of the Beautiful: the Picturesque, describing something worthy of being
put into a picture, or like one.
A Herefordshire gentleman and heir to an iron fortune, Richard Payne Knight, made his contribution to this debate in 1805 with his book An
Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste. It was these ideas that were expressed in Downton. However, his earlier claim to - well, if not
fame, then notoriety - was the publication in 1786 of An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, a scholarly survey of the reverence
of the phallus in antiquity, printed complete with a frontispiece of a charming range of archaeological willies. That he never married somehow
comes as no surprise.
On inheriting Downton in 1772 Mr Knight set about rebuilding the house as a Gothic castle. It stood high above the waters of the Teme which,
for the most part, cut a dramatic gorge through the Herefordshire hills - just the same sort of environment we encounter in other Gothic
Gardens. Walks, climbing to and fro along the riverside, dramatic bridges, and a cold bath made their appearance, watched over by the castle
itself from its more decorous parkland surroundings. The keynote was the possibilities of the natural environment, rather than nutty follies, but
the form of the landscape skewed the exercise more towards the Sublime than the Beautiful, as such: 'Where sympathy with terror is
combined/to move, to melt, and elevate the mind' - as Knight himself wrote in his 1784 poem, The Landscape.
Nowadays the Castle is owned privately (by someone who reputedly only visits once a year) and most of Downton Walks is a nature reserve
with no public access, so we can only gain glimpses of this Gothic Garden.
My introduction to the Downton
landscape was walking down a
footpath under threat of disappearing
between seven-foot-high stalks of
corn, which would have been deeply
unsettling if I'd seen too many horror
movies. At the bottom you join the
Herefordshire long-distance path, and
enter the Downton estate just before
Forge Bridge, one of Mr Knight's
beautiful crossings of the Teme. The
waters seethe and boil beneath.
landscape was walking down a
footpath under threat of disappearing
between seven-foot-high stalks of
corn, which would have been deeply
unsettling if I'd seen too many horror
movies. At the bottom you join the
Herefordshire long-distance path, and
enter the Downton estate just before
Forge Bridge, one of Mr Knight's
beautiful crossings of the Teme. The
waters seethe and boil beneath.
From beside the bridge, a gap in the
trees affords a far-off sighting of the
turrets of the Castle, rising above the
leaves in a fairytale fashion. When
you reach it, however, it seems
disappointingly squat and twee - a bit
like something from a model village.
trees affords a far-off sighting of the
turrets of the Castle, rising above the
leaves in a fairytale fashion. When
you reach it, however, it seems
disappointingly squat and twee - a bit
like something from a model village.
| Once over Castle Bridge, the footpath, and its public access, climbs up the other side of the valley and leaves Downton Walks behind. Somewhere beyond the Natural England sign lie wiers, a cave, rocky cliffs, the towering Rock spoken of by 18th-century visitors, and a variety of exciting views. All you can do is gaze along the river and imagine the dramatic landscape that so delighted Georgian seekers after the Sublime. |
Well - nearly all. I was
terribly naughty and
scuttled as far as I dared
along the gorgeside path,
a hundred yards or so,
to the first of the
'features' of the Walks, a
Giant's Cave - exactly
the sort of rock-hewn
archway or tunnel we
find at Piercefield,
which was constructed
a few years before. I
don't think I disturbed
any terribly rare fauna
along the way.
terribly naughty and
scuttled as far as I dared
along the gorgeside path,
a hundred yards or so,
to the first of the
'features' of the Walks, a
Giant's Cave - exactly
the sort of rock-hewn
archway or tunnel we
find at Piercefield,
which was constructed
a few years before. I
don't think I disturbed
any terribly rare fauna
along the way.
| Given its proud place in embryonic Gothic tourism, it's a great shame that Downton remains so inaccessible. The old 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey map shows a bridleway extending along the south of the valley as far as Bow Bridge, so this closure is presumably relatively recent. It was never the most extreme of these maddened landscapes - just a sketch for the Sublime, really - but it would be fun to sample nevertheless. Perhaps the dream is better. |
