'All nature is a garden'

Earlier explanations of the origin and structure of the world were superseded. The natural landscape was seen to possess a genuine order in its own right, and with a magnificence beyond the formal mockery of princely gardens. Boundaries between garden and landscape became more fluid.

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Humphry Repton, Fragments on the theory and practice of landscape gardening. 1816. 59.e.20 Copyright © The British Library Board		View of the William Shenstone’s Leasowes and Priory by H.F. James. Engraved by Stadler, K.Top, xxxvi. 21.3.b Copyright © The British Library Board

Landowners were encouraged to make a kind of garden of their whole property and what lay beyond it. This might result in the landscape garden or the picturesque wilderness garden. Writers such as William Shenstone were in the forefront of these changes, but they could also be the severest critics of professional 'improvers '.