Introduction

This chapter argues that the origin of the protected vista reflects a desire to reinforce particular cultural and intellectual values within the representation of landscape and, subsequently, cityscape. It outlines the evolution and development of Thames landscape and account for the ideas which form its cultural topography. The chapter examines Richmond Hill’s Terrace Walk conformed to the seventeenth-century fashion for axial perspectivalism in landscape design, likened to the extension of country house architecture to the garden or to the overlaying of urban axiality upon the natural landscape. It explores the property boom which overtook eighteenth-century Richmond-upon-Thames and demonstrates how local intellectual circles began to look to natural views of the Thames for inspiration in contemporary literature, architecture and landscape design. The extraordinary wealth of aristocratic seats and gardens developed along the stretch of the Thames is evidence that landscape views of the river have long been admired.