ABSTRACT
Time as well as space framed the landscape gardening of Humphry Repton
(1752-1818), not least the passage of time which affected his designs on the
ground. Shortly after Repton’s death, it was reported that a number of his
gardens were ruinous and overgrown. The biographical Preface to the 1840
edition of Repton’s published works, probably authored by his son John
Adey Repton, maintained that such a book would provide a more enduring
record of his fame:
It was a process that Repton himself recognized in his constant travels to
commissions during the dramatic social and economic changes of his career,
as changes in ownership and stewardship resulted in the abandonment or
alteration of what he had proposed. As a landscape gardener who was not
a contractor (like Capability Brown) but a consultant, preparing designs of
meticulous, and sometimes fragile detail for others to implement and man-
age, his grounds for complaint may seem a little thin, but they effectively
supported his insistence that his art of landscape gardening would endure
more on paper, in writing and illustration, than on the ground.
