W. A. Nesfield

William Andrews Nesfield (1793–1881) was an English landscape architect and artist.

Nesfield was born at Lumley Park, County Durham. In 1808, after the death of his mother, the family moved the few miles to Brancepeth where his father became rector of St Brandon's church. His stepmother was Marianne Mills of Willington Hall, whose nephew was the noted architect Anthony Salvin, and Nesfield's younger sister married Salvin.

Nesfield was educated at Durham School, then located on Palace Green, before entering the army. He fought under Wellington in Spain and at Waterloo, and he also served for two years in Canada, where he was present at the Siege of Fort Erie and the Battle of Chippawa. He retired in 1816, and took up a career as a painter of watercolours, particularly of waterfalls, earning the praise of John Ruskin in Modern Painters.

While still exhibiting at the Old Water Colour Society, Nesfield began work as a professional landscape architect, with the encouragement of Salvin.

From 1840 until his death in 1881 he was responsible, either singly or with his sons Arthur Markham and William Eden for no fewer than 259 commissions in the British Isles. His military training enabled him to design the water features which were so effective in many of his gardens.

The Witley Court fountain in Worcestershire, which cost the equivalent of more than £1 million in 1853, is the triumphant centrepiece of elegant gardens designed by Nesfield, who described them as his “monster work”. It has 120 separate jets hidden amongst giant shells, sea nymphs, dolphins and a monstrous serpent. The main jet reaches up to 90 feet (27 m). Performing artist Bing Crosby was keen to acquire the fountain for his Hollywood home, but the monumental, 20-ton, block sculpture with 54-metre-wide pool, which can be compared to the smaller Trevi Fountain in Rome and fountains at Versailles, remained in England. The gardens and fountain were designed to reflect the wealth of the 1st Earl of Dudley and the grandeur of his Italianate mansion, which was often visited by royalty and other rich landowners. Nesfield's dramatic south parterre was set against the wide spaces of the surrounding parkland and the distant wooded wild landscape.

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