Plenty in Fountains always graceful shows,

And greatest Beauty from abundance flows...

(John Worlidge Systema Horti

Culturae: or The Art of Gardening

1677)

Water is a vital element in gardens; without it nothing grows, but water, as well as having a utilitarian use has also always been an important decorative or even structural element within garden design. The ambitious plans to restore W. A. Nesfield’s great fountains in the gardens of the burned-out shell of Witley Court in Worcestershire illustrate the continued fascination with fountains. This particular scheme, spearheaded by the Poseidon Fountain Restoration Society with the support of the Severn Trent Water Authority and English Heritage, has also highlighted the sometimes intricate and elaborate systems of reservoirs, feeder tunnels, pipes and pressure boxes which were required to feed the monster fountains of the mid and late 19th century.

During the Victorian period there was a resurgence of interest in fountains, cascades and formal water features. Fountains and cascades have, like all other garden designs and features, gone through cycles of fashion and today there is again a renewed interest not only in the restoration of historic fountains but also in the creation of new fountains and water features, fuelled, at least in part, by the funding possibilities opened up by lottery monies or even European sources of funds. Indeed the funds now available for the restoration of Victorian public parks means that there is an even greater opportunity to restore fountains and water features which have often been dry for decades or been subjected to the ultimate indignity of being converted into oversize rose bowls. The successful restoration of a fountain is a complex operation which

FOUNTAINS,

CASCADES AND CONSERVATION

This quarter, Judith Roberts gushes about water features

draws on a multi-disciplinary team and requires an understanding of what might be called the aesthetic and historical ‘environment’ of the fountain as well as the hydrodynamics and the performance and decay of a range of materials and built fabric.

There is a huge range of fountains of many materials, types and periods from simple fountains, the focal points of villa gardens, to complex networks of water features like the cascade house

and its associated fountains and cascades at Chatsworth. Here, indeed, the string of fountains, cascades and their associated feeder infrastructure span a period from the 17th to the 19th centuries and form in themselves and inthe technology which supplied them a major archaeological feature.

Fountains have always been more important on the Continent and the fashion for fountains, as well as the details of their design, has frequently been influenced by continental models, especially Italian ones, and sometimes even by the work of continental designers. Perhaps the most influential of the 17th century fountains were those in the Earl of Pembroke’s great gardens of Wilton House. Here the gardens were designed by Isaac de Caus, a “. . . rare Artist”, and included fountains with statues of Diana, Venus and Cupid, Susanna and Cleopatra in the parterres close to the house, together with a grotto with a collection of water tricks designed to soak the guests.

The garden literature of the 17th

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The Atlas Fountain designed by John Thomas is the central feature of the gardens laid out by W. A. Nesfield at Castle Howard.

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