Stowe, Buckinghamshire

Crossing point

The Palladian Bridge in the park at Stowe was built in 1739 by the first Viscount Cobham, around the time that many of the numerous other garden structures – temples, pavilions, statues and monuments – were erected there. Its design was probably by the great classical architect James Gibbs and he based it closely on the similar bridge at Wilton House, Wiltshire, which went up just two years earlier.The arrangement of an Ionic arcade of four columns between a pair of pedimented end pavilions is beautifully satisfying – no wonder the architect adopted it with few changes. Gibbs did modify the earlier design slightly, however, chiefly by making the structure wider than the Wilton bridge and also lower, so that carriages could cross it as their passengers went on tours of the gardens. It’s the second of the great trio of English Palladian bridges, the other being at Prior Park, Bath.*

The design doesn’t come from any extant structure by the great Italian architect Palladio, although it is based on a scheme he created for a bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice that was never built. The Stowe bridge has changed slightly since it first saw the light of day. It originally had open arches on the westward side, but a blank wall on the east (behind the bridge in my photograph). The rationale behind this was that the bridge was near the edge of the park, and the idea was to encourage those on the bridge to admire the view across the water and into Cobham’s grounds. On the inside of the blank wall was a relief carving by Scheemakers of the Four Quarters of the World bringing their products to Britannia. The bridge was never an ideal place for the carving as it was actually quite difficult to see it clearly because you couldn’t stand back far enough from it. So it was removed in 1762 and placed in the pediment of the Temple of Concord and Victory. When this was done the builders fitted a matching colonnade, so that the two sides were identical.

The Palladian Bridge as it stands does not bear obvious symbols of the philosophical and political ideas expressed in many of Stowe’s temples and monuments – buildings such as the Temples of British Worthies and Ancient Virtue, statues such as those of the Muses, and monuments like those to heroes like Captain Cook and Captain Grenville all represent very specific values. However, the elegant classical architecture of the bridge, together with its key position on the Path of Liberty, a long itinerary through the grounds, places it firmly in the same category as these monuments and structures. No doubt ,many of those taking a walk in the grounds were grateful for it too, pausing there to admire the view or taking advantage of the shelter it offered from the rain. The bridge is clearly as useful as its design is beautiful.

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* There’s a fourth, known as the Marble Bridge, in the grounds of the Russian imperial palace at Tsarskoye Sole, St Petersburg. Another structure, at Stourhead, known as the Palladian Bridge, lacks the striking superstructure of the other four, and is hardly Palladian at all.

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Loitering in tents

The Cheltenham Festival of Literature has just been on. A large tented village appeared – or rather two tented villages, filling two of the gardens lined with terraces of Regency houses that are among the highlights of Cheltenham’s town centre. As the canvas was alternately heated by the sun and buffeted by the wind, thousands of us sat around while hundreds of authors got on their hind legs to entertain and instruct us on every subject from the Spanish Civil War to the history of the bathroom, from Charles Dickens to Eric Gill. Most of the tents used at the festival are standard-issue white canvas jobs of various sizes but, as I discovered when I went in search of a coffee between events, one of them is nothing less than a Spiegeltent, one of those early-20th-century rococo confections imported from the Low Countries as palaces of entertainment or boudoirs of burlesque.

Spiegeltents originated in Belgium and now a number of these antique structures have been restored and are on hire to those who want a venue a cut above the usual marquee. As I went for my coffee I understood the attraction. Gilded fronds and curlicues run up and down the walls, putti and scrolls hang from columns, surfaces are covered with bits of mirror or painted in a fairground palette. Carefully positioned light fittings accentuate the glitter. The richly coloured canvas roof completes the exotic ensemble. Now, I was here in the morning, so did not experience the joys of Kiki de Montparnasse or the provocatively named Ophelia Bitz, two entertainers I believe were billed to appear later in these seductive surroundings. But the rococo environment still delighted my eye as I sipped my coffee and waited to return to the more elevated matters on offer in the rather puritanical white marquees.

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Apologies for my quick-fire iPhone photo, taken on the hoof and somewhat blurred, but atmospheric nonetheless, I hope.

You can find more about Spiegeltents and see more images of them here.

Shrewsbury, Shropshire

We want a rockery

In the Abbey Gardens by the river in Shrewsbury is an interesting rockery, made up largely of tantalizing fragments of old buildings. This very special rubble got here because the land was once a stone yard of belonging to a local family of builders, sculptors, and architects, the Carlines. The place is easy to miss as you hot-foot it across the river on the way to the abbey, but it’s well worth a pause. The collection includes various statues, a carved stone head, part of an Ionic capital, a clock face, a coat of arms, and other fragments of moulding and carved stone. Presumably they came from altered or demolished buildings, and most of them must have found their way here in the 19th century.

For the most part, it’s not known which buildings these carvings came from. The main exceptions are the fragment of Ionic capital and the figure of Justice, shown with her scales and accompanied by ears of wheat, a cornucopia, and the Shropshire coat of arms. These came from the town’s old Shirehall, a building designed by a local man, Hiram Haycock, and demolished in 1834.

Justice has seen better days. Her surface is flaking and only part of her iron scales survives – they’re vulnerable in this position. And yet I like the way these stones have been unselfconsciously preserved by being incorporated into a rockery, finding a use that would have surprised their creators but must have given pleasure to locals and visitors alike. I’ve never fancied a rockery of my own, but if it could be like this I might change my mind.

Paddington Street, London

First and last

The background to this little building is outlined on a helpful board nearby. Paddington Street Gardens originated in the 18th century as a burial ground for the parish church of St Martylebone. The land was granted to the parish by Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, in 1730 and the burial ground was opened in 1733. There were few burials after 1814, when the St John’s Wood burial ground was opened, and subsequently most of the headstones were removed and the land turned into a park. But this mausoleum was left in place. It was built by the Hon Richard Fitzpatrick for his wife, who died in 1759, aged just 30. Later his daughter was buried there too.

So much for the history. But what made me notice this small building, aside from its fine lines and the large urn acting as an outsize finial and funerary symbol, is the way it works in its setting. The pale stone building acts as a focus in this enclave of plane trees, lawns. and flowers. And as if to confirm that, the gardeners have attached hanging baskets, so that plants and stones, soft and hard landscaping, come together. This winning combination is typical of graveyards, where the seasonal round of flower and leaf acts in counterpoint to the theme of last things, turning our thoughts from death to the renewal of life. In Paddington Street Gardens, the mausoleum and its vivid flowers ensure that this process is re-enacted year by year.