Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

Lancelot "Capability" Brown
A portrait painting of Brown painted by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1773
Born	Lancelot Brown Kirkharle, England
Baptised	30 August 1716
Died	6 February 1783(1783-02-06) (aged 67–68) London, England
Occupation	Gardener Landscape architect
Spouse(s)	Bridget Wayet (m. 1744–83)
Children	7
Parent(s)	William Brown Ursula Hall

Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known with the byname Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English 18th century artists to be accorded his due" and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure. He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement. His influence was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors Charles Bridgeman and William Kent are often overlooked; even Kent's apologist Horace Walpole allowed that Kent had been followed by "a very able master".

Lancelot Brown was born as a land agent's and chambermaid's fifth child in the village of Kirkharle, Northumberland, and educated at a school in Cambo until he was 16. Brown’s father had been Sir William Loraine’s land agent and his mother in service at Kirkharle Hall. His eldest brother John became the estate surveyor and later married Sir William's daughter. Elder brother George became a mason-architect. After school Lancelot worked as the head gardener's apprentice at Sir William Loraine's kitchen garden at Kirkharle Hall till he was 23. In 1739 he journeyed south arriving at the port of Boston, Lincolnshire. Then he moved further inland where his first landscape commission was for a new lake in the park at Kiddington Hall, Oxfordshire. He moved to Wotton Underwood House, Buckinghamshire, seat of Sir Richard Grenville. In 1741, Brown joined Lord Cobham's gardening staff as undergardener at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, where he worked under William Kent, one of the founders of the new English style of landscape garden. At the age of 26 he was officially appointed as the Head Gardener in 1742, earning £25 (equivalent to £3,500 in 2015) a year and residing at the western Boycott Pavilion. Brown was the head gardener at Stowe 1742-1750. He made the Grecian Valley at Stowe which, despite its name, is an abstract composition of landform and woodland. Lord Cobham let Brown take freelance commission work from his aristocratic friends, thus making him well known as a landscape gardener. As a proponent of the new English style, Brown became immensely sought after by the landed families. By 1751, when Brown was beginning to be widely known, Horace Walpole wrote somewhat slightingly of Brown's work at Warwick Castle: