This book provides a survey of that phenomenon of the 18th century, the English landscape garden, which has. had a profound bearing on the way landscapes and gardens have been designed ever since and which has affected the way in which we view them today. The English landscape garden took a variety of forms and changed in emphasis through the century, although the basis was making the appearance ever more natural, even though it was the result of considerable contrivance, effort and design skill. It progressed from a mixture of trim regularity and some 'wiggling' of paths and water to the wild and seemingly untouched landscapes of the Picturesque, with offshoots such as the ornamented farm along the way. All sorts of factors and motivations lay behind the creation of these great parks, ranging from political expression to the influence of the theatre and of landscape paintings. Nature was arranged and shown to best advantage, often by means of a circuit path or other viewing strategy such as the provision of 'pause seats' at a particularly notable scene. Often architectural features, sometimes called follies, would provide incidents and tableaux in their settings. Outside the garden or boundary of the estate, the surrounding countryside might be brought in to permit a distant panorama.

Plantings would be either to promote the 'Englishness' of the scene by using native or long-established timber or to take advantage of the massive influx of exotic species introduced from (in particular) North America. The book can be regarded as a companion to the volume already published by Historic England, The English Landscape Garden in Europe. Book jacket.