Looking at lakes as ornaments in the landscape

Imagine a stately home or historic park and the chances are that your mind’s eye sees a large and distinctive house fronted by a lake: perhaps Castle Howard in Yorkshire, or Bowood in Wiltshire. A large body of tree-fringed water, serving as a complement to the house, is almost part of the definition of stately home, and we tend to take for granted the pairing of the two. Yet, as Wendy Bishop points out in her newly published book on the origins and evolution of the ornamental lake, we need to take a closer look, because nearly all the lakes in England are artificial (with the exception of those in the Lake District and a handful elsewhere), and almost none of these existed before c.1720.

This undated oil painting of the house and lake at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, shows the mid-18th-century ideal of the house reflected in the lake. In this case, the picture was perhaps intended to show what the house would look like to future generations, because the trees would not have been as mature as this at the time when the house and lake were made. Such paintings also tell us about the ways in which lakes were used: for fishing and boating, as well as for bankside picnics and painting and reading excursions. Image: The Trustees of the Faringdon Collection.

Information about when they were made, how, and by whom is very scarce. Historic England’s lists of designated buildings and designed landscapes might mention a lake but generally provide no further information. One reason for this is the lack of documentation. For her book, Wendy has had to approach the issue of dating by scouring maps to see when the lake is first shown (though that could be some years after its construction), as well as reading ledgers, letters, diaries, and published works for references to water. The task is not made any easier by the terms used to describe a body of water, including pond, pool, or mere. The term ‘lake’ was not routinely used to describe an artificial body of water until the 1790s. Before then, ‘water’ was the term commonly used, as in ‘the Great Water’, ‘the Piece of Water’, ‘the Intended Water’, and ‘the Broad Water’.

Above Garden buildings, like the Pantheon at Stourhead, Wiltshire, were carefully sited to create reflections in the lake. Many of the topographical paintings of the second half of the 18th century show the main house reflected in the lake’s surface, even when this is impossible (as at Corsham Court, Wiltshire) because the house is too far from the water and at the same level with it, rather than raised. — Garden buildings, like the Pantheon at Stourhead, Wiltshire, were carefully sited to create reflections in the lake. Many of the topographical paintings of the second half of the 18th century show the main house reflected in the lake’s surface, even when this is impossible (as at Corsham Court, Wiltshire) because the house is too far from the water and at the same level with it, rather than raised.

The author’s own definition is a body of water of a hectare or more, intended primarily for aesthetic pleasure and recreational use (although capable of being used to stock fish), and having a visual relationship to the house. A hectare is about the same size as London’s Trafalgar Square and is a large enough area to be depicted on most maps, estate plans, or topographical engravings. Size is one way of distinguishing a lake from a fishpond, moat, or millpond, and ornamental lakes tend to have an irregular outline, distinguishing them from the more rectilinear water gardens of an earlier age. The most significant difference is that a lake is replenished by a river and has to be sited along a suitable watercourse, whereas ponds, usually lined with puddled clay, can be located anywhere and they rely on rainwater or a leet or conduit bringing water to them from a nearby spring or watercourse.

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