ABSTRACT
A companion to the first chapter, and concluding my investigation of the early picturesque, this chapter provides a detailed study of the garden that Kent designed at Rousham, Oxfordshire, between 1738 and 1741. The chapter is organised into three interconnecting sections, each with a specific theme. The first, ‘The Genius of the Place’, focuses on the ideas, images and emotions that Rousham evokes. Recognising two distinct attitudes to atmospheric phenomena in classical antiquity — one a theory of meteors, the other a practical guide to the weather — the second section, ‘The Weather of the Place’, assesses their relevance to the early eighteenth century, when rural England was yet to feel the true impact of science and industrialisation, and analyses the weather's complex contribution to Rousham's genius loci. The concluding section, ‘Designing while Walking’, recognises Rousham as an innovative reassessment of the architect's practice as it was established in the Italian Renaissance.
