A Very ‘Capable’ Weston Park
A British country estate three hundred years in the making
‘Capability Brown was invited back to Weston Park in 1766 to undertake a second contract,’ says our guide, ‘for which he was paid £1,725.’ Scanning the beautiful one-thousand-acre parkland in front of us, I nod in approval. At that price, I might ask him for a quote to landscape my front garden. Then again, at today’s prices that works out at over £216,000!
Over three hundred years ago, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was baptised at Kirkhale, in Northumberland, on 30th August 1716, and so began the life of one of the UK’s most famous landscape gardeners.
His ‘Capability’ nickname arose after he arrived at prospective clients’ properties and advised them that their grounds had great capabilities. (This was a man who knew how to sweet-talk potential customers!) It worked because, over a 35-year period, Brown worked on over 170 commissions.
Brown first came to Weston Park, on the Shropshire and Staffordshire border, in 1765, when he was commissioned by the then owner, Sir Henry Bridgeman, to create a ha-ha around the south side of the house.
