| Date | 19 February 2016 |
|---|---|
| Reference | VP-0073 |
| Volume | Views of the Past |
| Collection | Views of the Past |
Transcript
Lost garden in park
I WAS recently given a number of aerial photographs of Windsor and the surrounding area. I was amazed to find some interesting parch marks which showed up an area of the Home Park of Windsor Castle on a picture taken in 1964.
My first thought was that these marks related to some Edwardian recreation area within the park, or perhaps something to do with the Second World War. It turned out, rather excitingly, that these marks were part of a lost garden of Windsor Castle, none of which survives to this day.
The answers to my questions were answered in Lady Jane Roberts’ Magnum Opus entitled ‘Royal Landscape: The Gardens and Parks of Windsor’.
According to Lady Roberts’ research, the garden was created in the early part of the 18th century in around 1713 and was known as the Maastricht Garden. The garden was named after a battle in Maastricht in the Netherlands in 1673. A year later, the battle was re-enacted in the Little Park of Windsor Castle by James, Duke of Monmouth.
The area where the garden was to be created from land purchased by William III in 1698. A high wall was constructed around the garden which was really just a piece of enclosed land at the beginning of the 18th century.
In around 1712 a new plan for the Maastricht Garden was submitted to Queen Anne by Royal Gardener Henry Wise. An estimate was submitted of £6,874. This included ‘levelling, new making and planting a division of ground on the north side of the castle’.
The garden Wise designed was very ornamental and elaborate in comparison to William III’s.
The centrepiece included a canal, the earth from which was used to improve and repair Datchet Lane. Paths and symmetric avenues were lined with newly-planted trees which survived into the early part of the 19th century.
It would appear the garden was completed but abandoned soon after the accession of George I in August 1714. It became overgrown and eventually turned back to pasture; by the middle of the 19th century it had disappeared forever.
Image: Henry Wise’s design as it appeared on a map by Collier of 1742
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