Capability Brown's Unfinished Garden

These are some of the most magnificent landscapes in England.

They were designed by the person regarded by many as

the first landscape architect,

and England's most famous landscape designer.

He travelled the length and breadth of the country,

improving more than 200 of the greatest estates in the land,

for some of the most influential people in the 18th century.

300 years ago, he was baptised Lancelot,

today he is better known as Capability Brown.

His skill and his nickname came from seeing

what he called the "capabilities" of the landscape.

But there is one estate that never even reached the drawing board.

15 years before he died, he bought the estate at Fenstanton in Cambridgeshire.

It is the only land that he ever owned.

It is where he and his family are buried.

I'm Bunny Guinness, I'm a gardener and a landscape architect

and, in this programme, I'll discover what Brown might have done to his own land.

Oh, don't I love the view! Fantastic!

We'll find out why he was so successful.

It's absolutely typical and you cannot see the end.

That could go on like that for ever.

We'll hear why he wasn't always appreciated.

I think Brown was a vandal.

I think he was a very visionary vandal.

'It's a story of ambition, debt, scandal and mystery.'

She's thought to be the illegitimate daughter of Brown.

A great estate like this would shelter all sorts of goings on

that wouldn't necessarily be known about in the wider world.

Capability Brown was Lord of the Manor here, so this was the first

piece of land that he could create his own landscape for himself.

I don't know any landscape designers that don't relish the chance

to get their hands on their own piece of land,

and Fenstanton seemed to be perfect for him.

But he died before he could carry out his plans.

Today, it is a piece of flat land bisected by a dual carriageway.

To understand what he might have created, I'm travelling the country

to search for clues in some of his best-loved landscapes.

'I'll use rediscovered plans, rarely seen treasures,

'and the latest technology to show what his garden would look like

'as a completed Capability Brown landscape.'

Whoa!

This is really exciting!

I'll reveal the man himself and create a picture

of what could have been his missing masterpiece -

Capability Brown's unfinished garden.

I'm starting my journey at Blenheim Palace.

This is a classic Lancelot Brown landscape.

He framed views with trees

and improved the setting of the huge bridge.

Dominating the landscape is the great body of water,

two lakes beneath the stone bridge.

300 years after Brown, the gardens are mature and look pretty natural,

but they are entirely man-made.

Grand estates were influenced by the fashions of the day.

Before Brown, gardens featured formal sections with clipped hedges

planted in complex patterns, like these more recent versions.

In the 18th century, the fashion had changed from formal

to natural, and Brown was the man to do it.

Pictures found in the Blenheim Palace archives and private collection

reveal how Brown was able to sort out a mess left by others.

This is a pre-Brown plan and it's an absolutely beautiful plan,

drawn in 1719, of the gardens as they existed at that time,

so the original gardens were designed and executed by Henry Wise,

who was also the main gardener to royalty,

and his main work was to the south of the palace.

So this little object here, which puts it all in perspective, is the palace,

and you have an enormous flower parterre,

then the great parterre here.

It was box, yew and holly and all the little intricacies

were absolutely symmetrical, but what they did build -

you can just see the outline of it in red -

was a raised walkway, so that you could take your exercise and air

and look down on the beauty of it all.

Because it would have looked much better from above than in it.

-Absolutely.

-It would have been overwhelming almost.

-Yes.

And the amount of gardeners they would have had to maintain this all?

An enormous number.

The formal gardens had had their day and Brown laid the great south lawn

on the site of the former parterre,

but Brown's main challenge was to give the existing bridge

a setting it deserved.

It's interesting to see this formal canal network underneath

the great bridge, so that was all here before Brown came.

It was. Well, the architect was John Vanbrugh.

He did not see eye-to-eye with the first Duchess,

and he had created this huge bridge, which she didn't particularly like,

and generated quite a lot of criticism at the time.

She had a canal that went under the bridge and she built

a beautiful cascade under the bridge,

then the canal system came out, heading towards the west.

And this is Brown's plan, and where did you find this?

Well, it was actually found rolled up in a box by a historian

called David Green who came to write the definitive book of history

on Blenheim and it clearly hadn't been seen for many, many years,

and so had been beautifully preserved, all rolled up.

And this is Brown's, I think reasonably quick,

plan of what he intended to do just with the water.

So Brown came along, he solved it, he flooded the bridge,

-and it does look a lot better.

-It does look exquisitely beautiful.

Seeing what Brown did to improve the landscape here at Blenheim

will help with ideas for his land at Fenstanton.

He runs a complicated business, but he's still a genius.

I mean, all you've got to do is look at that...

For more insight, landscape historian Tom Williamson

is showing me around the Blenheim parkland.

What would you say is Brown's main design criteria?

Well, I think one of the things he's doing is he is looking at

almost the raw topographic form, the shape of landforms and the contours,

and he's taking those and he's accentuating them where necessary,

I think that's how I would put it.

-He's embellishing the natural landscape?

-Is bringing out the...

the sort of inner truth of the landscape,

I suppose he might say, and so, with something like this,

almost the point of the lake is to show you the shape of the land.

There's nothing like the edges of a lake to show you the actual shape of the landform.

You wouldn't pick that up in the same way as a valley,

so it's taking natural landforms, accentuating it where necessary.

So he reveals the capabilities of the Blenheim parkland

and improves a half-finished landscape

that others had not or could not complete.

This is sort of typical for a lot of Brown in that,

when we look at a landscape like this,

we're not just looking at Brown,

Brown is working for the richest people in the land,

the real top people, and they have, generally speaking -

not always, but generally -

seats, country estates which have already been worked on by the best,

so, in this particular case,

the house by John Vanbrugh,

the bridge by John Vanbrugh.

Without the bridge, this scene,

wonderful though it is, would not be the same,

but Brown doesn't design the bridge, that's there,

that's already quite an old structure, actually.

The bridge had been completed around 1730,

but the lakes we see today did not exist until Brown came along

more than 30 years later.

He used hundreds of men to dig out the valley and line it with clay

to make it waterproof, and he made it look like a wide, natural river.

It's absolutely typical and you cannot see the ends,

I mean, that's critical for Brown.

So the imagination makes it even bigger.

That could go on like that for ever, that's the genius of it.

His genius is acknowledged in his nickname - Capability.

It was an affectionate term used only by Brown's clients, never by himself,

and his reputation soon spread amongst the wealthy dukes and earls.

Brown - he's the brand, he's the big star of this and, partly,

no doubt, that's because of his amazing ability as an artist,

partly though it's his ability as a businessman.

Brown corners the market of the big, influential political elite,

the clique, if you like, that's running the country

and he works that network and he's recommended through those people.

To keep water in the lake,

Brown built a dam at the bottom end of the valley,

but it had to look natural, so he concealed the engineering and made

a feature of it in a surprise view, which is another of his themes.

Brown's designs are made to be explored either on foot

or in an open-topped carriage of some kind.

This is almost like a film,

with things, vistas, opening and closing

and things being revealed and sometimes surprises.

And I can hear a surprise around the corner.

It is supposed to evoke ideas of Italian landscape painting.

But it also has a functional purpose,

it's the outflow from the lake.

That is the level of the lake at the top,

and you can see just the beginning of the edge of the dam there,

and they had to have some way to get the water out,

because the water's coming in at the top end of the river,

so this is one way, the main way,

but they also have underground tunnels coming underneath the dam

to take it off at times of excess flow, cos the last thing you want

is the entire dam being washed away in flood.

It shows how good he was at water management and engineering.

Absolutely, and that to me is one of the amazing things about Brown,

that, on the one hand, as we saw where we were standing earlier,

it looks completely natural

yet, to achieve that effect, it's highly engineered.

Blenheim Palace has some wonderful clues for Brown's unfinished garden

which I'm going to gather and take back to Fenstanton.

A lake is a must, and the key is how Brown uses a serpentine view

so the valley and lake appear to go on for ever.

And I'm inspired by his water engineering skills.

The Cambridgeshire fens are flat and very watery.

In the middle of the Fenstanton estate is a modest stream.

As we saw at Blenheim, Brown was a master of water technology,

so he could use this in his design.

Not on the scale of Blenheim,

but using the same idea and technique to create a lake.

But where? We don't have a lot to go on.

There are few records or drawings,

but there is a map of the Fenstanton estate.

It was drawn after Brown bought the land, and it shows the

original stream and a small pond in the middle of an area of grassland.

In Brown's day, this piece of grassland

would've been much, much bigger.

And, in order to understand where Brown might have put the lake,

I need to understand where he would have lived.

There are two manor houses here.

Both survived from when he bought the estate.

If this was his retirement project, he would have chosen the house

to be part of the composition of his design.

Because he died before he retired,

we don't know which he'd have chosen for his home.

Hi, Nigel, I'm Bunny. Lovely to meet you.

'The Manor House is in the centre of Fenstanton village,

'and the current owner is sure that Brown stayed here.'

So, do you think Brown actually lived here?

Well, whether he did or he didn't, we don't know.

But what is clear is he would have had to have somewhere to have

actually done his parishional business.

He was the Lord of the Manor,

he now had buildings and land that need managing.

And this would have been his offices.

So, when he was actually visiting Fenstanton as his parish,

as Lord of the Manor, this is where he would have come.

-And it wouldn't have looked quite like this.

-No, not at all.

These partitioned walls either side of here wouldn't have been here. This would have been one large room.

The house was designed as a yeoman's house.

And as a yeoman's house, this is where the yeoman, or the Lord of the Manor,

did his business when he was actually visiting the parish.

'And there is evidence in the garden that Brown owned the house.'

So these are the apple trees that we, the historians,

believe were actually planted by Brown.

They certainly look gnarled enough, don't they?

They do look old, without a doubt.

But do they look 300 years old, do you think?

We have a receipt for their purchase.

So this is a receipt from the nursery in Madingley,

where Brown's gardener bought a number of trees for his garden.

So we've got 19 apple trees here.

We've got an apricot, which I think is actually quite unusual for those days.

Some damsons.

And so the apples that are mentioned here could well be the apples

-that are in the garden now.

-I wonder.

300 years old? Possibly.

Possibly. I mean, there are better people than me who think they are.

'I don't know. But it's a lovely story.

'We know Brown visited here, but would he have chosen this for his home?

'I think the key clue is the church.

'It is the dominant landmark in the village.

'If Brown's designs could not incorporate views of the church,

'then the Manor house would be ruled out.'

You can see the church from the garden.

Yeah, it's actually just over there.

But because there's no clear vista of the church, and knowing how Brown

liked to create gardens with that type of view,

obviously always planting follies if he didn't have something he could

focus on, it makes you wonder if he ever really intended to retire here.

'There is another house where he might have lived.'

-Hiya, Bunny.

-Hi, Ian. Lovely to meet you.

'It's about a mile away from the village and

'has perfect views towards the church.'

So you like the view, huh?

Oh, don't I love the view? Fantastic.

Waking up to that every morning.

It's delightful, especially when you come down the stairs in the morning.

And the sun is streaming down across the garden. And into that hall.

You can see that this might be somewhere that Brown would

have loved to have lived.

When you consider the view that would have been,

if he'd lived longer, the view across there,

there would have been a lot of water,

and, right the way around to here, there would have been some water.

-You have a stew pond there.

-Yes.

-And then that's very marshy there.

So you've got two or three really good elements that he loved.

So, in your heart of hearts, do you think Brown would have lived here?

Do you think he did live here?

I think his first choice would have been here.

I think, to overlook the village that he had bought,

he would have loved to have lived here.

'A plaque from the Sun Fire Office on the side of the house was

'registered to Brown and shows that he even insured the property.'

Do come in.

So, we know that Brown owned the place, because we've seen the insurance plaque.

Have you anything else that will

-tell us anything about his involvement?

-Only these maps.

The map at the top is the one that was done by Brown's surveyor.

He mapped out everything that Brown owned

once he'd bought all of the properties.

All these houses, all these plots of land. So he had, what, 145...?

-They're fields.

-Fields. Wow! That's quite a package, isn't it?

-It really is.

-It's one hell of a package.

-And there's his house.

-Your house.

-That's this house, yes.

-And the church, then, is up there.

-Over there.

Wow. And this beautiful expanse of your wonderful views.

And that's the view that Brown would have had

as he walked up or down the stairs in the morning.

So he's gone to a lot of trouble, hasn't he?

To get this surveyed. He was going to do something with it,

-wasn't he? He really was.

-Indeed he was.

But he didn't get around to it, and that kind of annoys me a bit.

THEY LAUGH

So I think that place is Brown's lake,

somewhere along the line between the house and the church.

Probably with some undulations around it.

And maybe even a bridge over it.

I'm happy that we know where the lake should be

and where he would have lived.

But there's another feature in the view that

he would have had to consider -

the village of Fenstanton.

To see what he might have done with that,

I'm going to Dorset and another Brown masterpiece.

This estate is so huge.

It's a real luxury to have a car, for me. Whereas poor old

Brown just had his feet and a horse, or maybe a horse and carriage.

But it is vast, this is just one of three valleys,

so he must have spent an awful lot of time purely travelling.

It's about three miles from end to end and more than 2,500 acres.

The three valleys around Milton Abbey were once described as

a barren landscape.

Brown was brought in to create a grand scheme for the new and

very wealthy Lord Milton and his recently built mansion.

He created a series of walks, one such as this, that, as you round

the corner, you see your first glimpse of the fantastic abbey.

Lord Milton's new mansion was built on the old monastic ruins.

All that is left from the original abbey is the church.

You have no idea what you're heading towards...

'Brown planted thousands of trees around the edges of the valleys

'to create an idyllic landscape.

'He also made walks through the woodland to make the most of

'the existing landmarks,

'especially the Abbey Church and a medieval chapel on the hillside.'

Fabulous building, isn't it? When does it date from?

12th century, so it's the first building on the site.

Isn't it stunning? I can quite see what he was doing.

'John Phibbs is a landscape architect and biographer of Brown.'

So, if you stand, you can see that the access,

if you run your eye down from the tower right along the top, is running up to this.

So that's the monastic arrangement.

Wherever you go around this huge landscape,

you see the church now behind, just out of the wood. Somehow or other,

they're always framed by hills on both sides coming down.

To see the church in a great dish of green grass running all the

way around. So the trees keep coming in from the side, as trees will.

And that was unusual for Brown, because, normally,

-he would focus it about the house.

-Yeah. Yeah.

It's unique, I think, probably, isn't it, when you think about it?

He's cut the house out and he's just giving you the church.

Because he's recognised that

the church is the key building in the landscape.

Linking the chapel and the Abbey Church is

a grass staircase believed to have been designed by Brown.

It is more ornamental than practical and is known as The Great Stare,

which gives an insight into Brown's character.

Brown was noted for his habit of making really bad puns.

And The Great Stare is a really bad pun.

Because it's the great staircase, great staircase that you climb up,

and it's also the great "stare", where you stand and stare out at the view.

-It is The Great Stare. So, it's sad, isn't it?

-Very funny. Good joke.

THEY LAUGH

Behind the abbey, there used to be a market town called Middleton.

It can be seen on the right in his engraving from 1733.

The town was in the valley directly below me.

It was huge, it stretched for a quarter of

a mile right up to the abbey.

But Lord Milton really did not want 500 people living on his doorstep,

so he decided to remove them and put some lakes there instead.

Brown did not complete the lake,

but he did design the layout of the new village of Milton Abbas.

-Lord Milton wanted to remove old Middleton by the abbey.

-Yes.

And Brown, in consequence, was required to build

a new village here for all the people who lived in the abbey.

And Sir William Chambers, the architect, he made the basic unit,

these units here, and they look like handsome gentleman's residences.

But in fact, each one was a tenement.

So you went in the front door and then the house divided into two,

or even four. So people were crammed in, in fact.

But they looked rather grand.

And my feeling is that Brown then created the whole village

and, to do that, he had to cut away the whole slope at the back here

-on that side...

-Big stuff.

..in order to fit in this serpentine, beautiful serpentine,

with the church running down at the pivot.

And so that's what makes the village so beautiful today,

it's the way each house is set a little bit back from the next one.

In Fenstanton, Brown would have made the most of the church,

and he had the village to consider as well.

It is unlikely Brown would want, or could afford, to move Fenstanton village.

But there's another idea here in Dorset that he used to make the most

of an existing village that shows Brown's love of natural landscapes.

My theory is that Brown took a look at what he'd done, and he'd made

this amazing village, and he thought, "This hasn't got it.

"This is not right, this is not what I'm trying to do."

Even though today everyone films and loves Milton Abbas and it's

-so beautiful.

-It was just too picture perfect.

Too picture perfect, that's exactly right, yes.

So he goes to this other village,

confusingly called Hilton, Hilton and Milton.

Anyway, Hilton is on the edge of the estate.

This is, I think, in the late 1770s, towards the end of his time,

and he ornaments now the Hilton valley.

And he plants these woodlands around the edge, incorporating and

embracing the village of Hilton.

And the village of Hilton he leaves completely unaltered.

And they're all built at odd angles, hugger-mugger, complete muddle of a village.

To me, it's as if he saw Milton Abbas, which was his own work,

and he said, "This isn't right.

"Actually, the old English village, that's the really beautiful thing."

And I think Brown was the first person to really see that.

Incorporated it in his landscape and said, "This is England."

And this process, this is how we see England today.

We see villages, we see that village of Hilton and it's beautiful.

I can see exactly what John Phipps means now.

The trees really embrace the village and sort of bed it

into the landscape.

Something he might well have done at Fenstanton.

With the valleys and the village in Dorset, I'm getting

a picture of the possibilities for Brown's garden in Cambridgeshire.

But there's something that puzzles me.

Why did he choose this flat landscape in the Fens?

Fenstanton has no hills or valleys to sculpt,

but Brown spent years trying to buy it.

Why was he so keen?

Part of the reason is here at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire.

Brown's reputation was already established

by the time he started at Castle Ashby.

He'd been an independent designer for more than a decade and had

worked at some of England's great estates,

including Longleat and Chatsworth.

The Earl of Northampton also wanted a Brown landscape and commissioned

him to improve Castle Ashby's park and its garden buildings.

Avenues were laid out, lakes created and the ice house rebuilt,

in the words of Brown, in a very expensive manner.

It all cost rather more than the Earl, Lord Northampton,

could afford.

And that meant that he owed thousands of pounds to Brown,

a sizeable fortune.

When Brown was working here, he heard about the Fenstanton estate

and he asked Lord Northampton if he could buy it.

'Philip Compton is a distant relative of the eighth Earl of Northampton.

'He's also the archivist for Castle Ashby.

'The current Lord Northampton has given me permission to see

'correspondence between his ancestor and Lancelot Brown.'

-"Most obligingly, our most obedient servant."

-Lancelot Brown.

Lovely seal, isn't it, there? Wonderful seal.

-Yeah, you can see the B for Brown.

-'It is a rare and generous offer.

'And I feel honoured to be able to see letters from the great man himself.'

1766. Brown to Lord Northampton.

"Mr Fullerton was the land agent at Fenstanton.

"Informed me that you and Mr Drummond had not agreed about the

"Huntingdon estate.

"If no other person is in treaty with Your Lordship,

"I should be glad to have the refusal of it.

"Your Lordship shall have very little trouble with me upon it."

'I didn't expect Brown to be so direct.

'This is extraordinary.'

So, this is Capability Brown speaking. "I have taken the liberty twice before this to beg to know of

"Your Lordship, whether you intend parting with the Huntingdon estate."

-Pressurising.

-Yeah, very much pressurising...

'These letters showed just how determined

'he was to buy the Fenstanton estate.

'I wonder what else we'll discover.'

Looks, he says at the beginning, "I have received a part of the

"papers and surveys relative to Fenstanton estate

"from Mr Partington."

'When Brown bought the estate,

'he was living with his wife and children at Hampton Court.

'He was Royal Gardener and a house came with the job.

'Brown owned no property,

'so this was his chance to look ahead to his retirement.

'Buying the estate cleared the debt owed to him and gave him

'a rental income from his tenants.'

He'll be interested to know what's his return on investment.

-Yes, that's a very good point, isn't it?

-Yeah.

The financial viability of it all.

'They finally agreed a price of £13,000,

'part of which was settlement for the debts owed to Brown for

'his work at Castle Ashby.

'So the income is one reason for Brown buying Fenstanton.

'But there may be another motive.'

Brown's connections with Fenstanton are peppered with mysteries.

We know he was buried somewhere here, but not exactly where.

We don't know exactly what sort of landscape plan he would have drawn up,

and we're not entirely certain which house he might have lived in.

And there's yet another mystery.

Here we have this magnificent stone memorial to Lancelot Brown.

Tests on the stone show it was put up shortly after his death.

And I love the crenulations along the top. He would have approved of that.

He used them in many places and liked that detail very much.

And this is the other mystery. The memorial to Mary Elizabeth Cowling.

She's thought to be the illegitimate daughter of Brown.

And on the stone is also mentioned Mary's son, Peter Lancelot,

presumably named after Mary's father.

So it looks like Brown had a mistress whose name we don't know.

And Mary was their illegitimate child.

They are buried here, next to Brown,

but we don't know where they lived.

Maybe Brown was seeing them whilst his wife and THEIR children

stayed in London. After all, Brown spent weeks away from home,

visiting estates in almost every county in England.

I've been visiting Brown sites,

travelling with speed and comfort by car.

But this is how Brown would have travelled, at best,

and don't forget the roads weren't nearly as smooth as this in his day.

Often, though, he would have gone by horseback,

travelling up and down the length of the country.

About half a day's ride north of Fenstanton is Burghley House,

one of Brown's longest-running projects.

His work at Burghley gave him,

in his own words, "25 years of pleasure".

It could be one of his puns. Pleasure of work

and pleasure of seeing his mistress and daughter here.

He created views using clumps of trees

to appear like natural openings,

and designed to be best seen from a horse and carriage.

Maybe this was why he was so good at assessing the landscape,

he really felt part of it, travelling through it like this.

And there it is.

Fantastic.

Jane Brown is a biographer of Lancelot Brown.

She's no relation, but does have an insight into his family.

I realised that we knew so much about his parks, and everyone

talked about his parks, but we didn't know anything about him.

In the research for her book, Jane found a manuscript that appears

to confirm that Mary Elizabeth is Brown's illegitimate daughter.

In the church records at Fenstanton,

where the church architect wanted to find someone to pay for

the repair of the monument, Brown's tomb monument,

about 100 years ago, and he drew out a family tree of the children,

and he drew a dotted line out to the side to connect Mary Elizabeth.

And they're all buried together.

So I just feel that she must have been connected, yes.

Do you think Brown's coming here was connected to

his affections with Mary Elizabeth Cowling?

Well, I think it's quite possible that she was connected to

Burghley, because if he had this...

if Mary Elizabeth Cowling was his daughter,

he presumably wanted to see her, and presumably her mother as well.

He would have come as virtually a bachelor, because his wife,

Biddy, she had no desire to leave home and of course there was

no place for her in the society of his clients.

A great estate like this can encompass all kinds of lives

and it would shelter all sorts of goings-on that wouldn't

necessarily be known about in the wider world.

Here at Burghley, we can also see Brown's skills as an architect.

He altered the house as well as the landscape.

And inside we can learn more about his personal life.

Here, overlooking his magnificent work in the great park,

is a rare portrait of Brown.

He's looking very relaxed and pleased with himself.

And this tells us something of his status in his later life.

When this was painted, he'd bought Fenstanton,

so he was lord of his own manor, had completed more than 130 projects

and was still working on some of the biggest states in the land.

He was in demand from rich and influential people who

wanted a Capability Brown landscape.

This picture shows he was more than a garden designer,

he was what we would term a celebrity.

Brown got on so well with his client here at Burghley,

the 9th Earl of Exeter, that he was given his own quarters in the house.

Here we've got an inventory,

and this inventory shows that Brown actually stayed here.

More than that, he had his own room.

It says, "Mr Brown's room" in the Bachelor's Gallery.

And it details exactly what was there.

A green bed, a green bedspread, quilt,

a lot of green furnishings, he obviously loved green.

It shows us two things.

It shows us that he was obviously very welcome here and that

he liked the colour green - not really a surprise.

Lady Victoria Leatham is a descendant of the Earl who

commissioned Brown at Burghley.

The Earl was a most interesting man.

Brown would have been dealing with a man who was fizzing with ideas

and bursting to impart knowledge and absorb knowledge,

so the two of them would have bounced off each other.

And I think that's what's so interesting.

The Earl would have been fascinated

by what Brown was discovering about trees and shrubs and how they worked

and what his idea was for angles and vistas.

-And architecture, and how to make it a most fantastic home.

-Yes, quite.

And he did more than just the gardens here.

He did. He moved into the house.

Erm, and in fact the room we're sitting in, this library, has one

of the wonderful plaster ceilings which was attributed to him.

I think it was a period of enormous expansion and excitement

in the 18th century.

Why do you think the Earl wanted Brown here in the first place?

Well, I think he had seen great landscapes when

he was travelling in Europe, that was the first point.

Second point is that I think he knew that the fashion was changing.

And he'd inherited something from his ancestors that wasn't

absolutely his mix.

The 17th-century stuff would have been looking

a bit dowdy by the time he came along,

because there were a couple of earls in between

who had no money, so they hadn't done much.

And I think he thought the moment had come to rejuvenate Burghley.

I mean, he really wanted to put a bit of welly into it

and get it going. And Brown was the man of the moment

and so he would have approached him

and Brown would have seen his chances.

He was an ambitious and effective operator.

He'd have moved in here, using the earl's social contacts

to make new contacts for himself,

and new jobs popping up here and there.

These drawings show the park before Brown started

with formal pleasure gardens near the house.

The very magnificent formal gardens that were here before Brown,

you see engravings of them,

they were very extensive - 25 gardeners.

-And then all went away.

-All went away.

And how do you feel about that?

-I think Brown was a vandal.

-SHE LAUGHS

I think he was a very visionary vandal

and I think that he was a man who incorporated a landscape

like nobody else could have done,

but he was doing it from a very male-centric point of view,

which is my beef with him.

Women like flowers, they like walking amongst flowers,

and there were no flowers here.

And what Brown was used to doing was riding about looking at vistas

and looking at views and thinking of the grand scheme of things

and strategy for the future, which he was brilliant at.

Brown managed to make it float in its landscape,

and it is set like a jewel in the middle of this green expanse.

He achieved the floating effect by the use of a ha-ha.

The ha-ha is a trademark of Brown,

a wall designed to keep livestock off the lawns

whilst avoiding a visible barrier looking from the house to the park.

Here at Burghley, it had two functions.

As well as enhancing the view of the house,

he used it to help with the drainage of the land.

And I have no doubt that he would have used a ha-ha

around his own house.

Here, Brown designed buildings as well as the landscape

and that will give me clues for the Fenstanton estate.

The orangery uses his favourite motif

of crenellations along the top of the walls.

But the building I want to find most is his fabulous summerhouse.

I'm hoping it could add some unexpected drama in his garden.

The approach is along small paths through bushes,

which obscure any views.

This is the entrance to Brown's summerhouse,

a very grand entrance.

It raises your expectations,

but then you open the door and all is revealed.

The view is all made by Brown.

The lake was new,

the hills were improved using earth dug out from the lake

and Brown's favourite trees, cedars of Lebanon,

offer views through their boughs.

Everything is placed for maximum effect.

So, there are three wonderful ideas here

that could really make a difference at Fenstanton -

the big reveal provided by the summerhouse,

the use of trees to frame and conceal views...

..and the ha-ha, which incorporated a drainage system

and would have helped with the flat, wet fen.

Brown's projects made the most of natural features and improved them.

Only occasionally did he face a landscape without hills or valleys,

like his own land at Fenstanton.

Cambridge is also flat,

so the city can give me more clues for his unfinished garden.

This is one of the most photographed views in Cambridge -

looking across some wet and very flat paddocks

at the back of the university colleges along the river.

It is known as the Backs.

In the 1770s, the chancellor of Cambridge University

invited Brown to design some alterations for the Backs.

St John's had already asked Brown to work on their land

and he had designed a wilderness with trees and grassland.

Then Brown was commissioned to make changes to the Backs as a whole.

I'm doing what thousands of students and tourists love to do -

enjoying this stretch of lazy river,

being punted beneath beautiful bridges over the River Cam.

But if Brown had got his way,

these bends would have been straightened out,

the bridges would have gone.

This historic park would have looked very different.

And without the bridges,

the punters' history talks wouldn't be the same.

So, we're coming in through Clare College now,

coming underneath the oldest bridge left on the river.

This actually predates the English Civil War.

When Oliver Cromwell took charge of Cambridge,

he kept this as the only bridge standing,

so that it would remain as the strongest bridge we'd have left.

The bridge survived Cromwell,

but Brown would have knocked it down.

The colleges each had their own identity

and their own formal gardens.

Brown proposed that the single landscapes

be unified into one park with four separate paddocks,

widening the river to create a lake

and removing formal avenues, bridges and boundaries.

Not many of Brown's plans survive,

but his design for the Cambridge Backs

is still in the university's library.

This is interesting and very exciting.

A rare chance to see one of Brown's own plans.

"A plan presented to the University of Cambridge

"for some alterations by Lancelot Brown."

We've got the Gibbs' building here,

the big new building that he wants to big up.

And then you can see the river, straight along as it is now,

but, wow, he's taken out that kink.

And then Clare College.

Where is Clare College and where are Trinity?

They've got quite a bit of tree-planting in front of them,

so he's definitely playing them down.

And then, on the other side of the river,

we've got very typical Brown-type planting.

We've got some quite sizeable clumps of trees that are quite open

and then the odd scattering of individual trees.

I'm interested in this scalloping round

that frames the whole landscape.

It just wraps around the back.

Very informal, winding its way there.

And then the strong formality, axial design, behind that.

So, there's quite a contrast.

And, obviously, when you view the Gibbs' building and the chapel,

you'll have broken vistas and then it will be revealed.

So, you've got the typical-type Brown approach -

now you see it, now you don't.

And how was it all to be maintained?

Well, in his notes here, it said,

"The lawn is to be fed with sheep and cattle."

Together, you've got a perfect combination for wonderful lawns.

Today, the lawns are grazed by geese

rather than the sheep that Brown had imagined in his proposed park.

It would have meant radical changes to these views.

The resulting parkland landscape was to be focused on King's College,

one of the newest and biggest buildings on the river.

It was to be Brown's centrepiece.

This is the Gibbs' building at King's College.

Imagine it as the mansion in a grand estate.

King's appears to be the most important,

framed by trees which hide the other colleges,

and, in effect, relegates them to the equivalent

of the stable blocks in Brown's composition.

That may be the reason why the scheme was rejected.

So, more ideas for his unfinished garden -

gentle curves instead of these sharp bends in the river,

paddocks with sheep, just one bridge,

and trees to mask unwanted buildings and soften the edges of the view.

Because Brown's plans never happened here,

we can only imagine how it would have looked.

It would be a dramatic change to today's views,

but this would have become a closer match to his other landscapes.

So, as I return to Fenstanton,

I'll reflect on all the places I've visited.

At Blenheim Palace,

I saw how he created views along the lake

that made it seem as though it had no end,

and heard about his water engineering skills.

At Milton Abbas in Dorset, he used the existing landmark

of the abbey church as a focus for his views.

He moved one village, but embraced another into the landscape.

At Burghley, he showed his love of a big reveal,

planting trees in front of the house so it emerges on the approach.

And he used the summerhouse

to create a dramatic surprise view of the lake.

And at Cambridge, his flattest but unbuilt project,

he wanted to have open water,

and used trees to mask unwanted buildings

and soften the edges of the view.

It's time to return to Fenstanton to put these ideas together.

I've visited some of Brown's best-known and important landscapes.

I've got to know Brown the person and Brown the designer,

and, with that knowledge, I've put together a plan which I think

would be Capability Brown's unfinished garden.

But have I gathered enough evidence?

So, this is the house that befits the Lord of the Manor.

'My three experts - Jane Brown, Tom Williamson and John Phibbs -

'have joined me at Capability Brown's house

'to agree the final design.'

So, I've taken my life in my hands with three experts.

You might well have some views. So, here's Brown's house.

Views straight through to the church up there.

The village, I've embraced with clumps of trees.

I've then got a long view down here

with typical scalloped-edge planting to a focal point there.

I've increased the watercourse somewhat

to make these sinuous, serpentine lakes.

And the approach from the church coming down and round

and back like that to the house like that.

So, what do you reckon?

You have to think very carefully about where the bridge is,

because the bridge is going to be a leading feature.

Currently, you've got the bridge more or less in line...

-BOTH:

-With the church.

And you've got to wonder about, "Well, do I want it there

"or do I actually want the bridge somewhere round here?"

To me, the main part of the water has to be the bit that connects,

visually, the house to the church, which is this section here.

-So, I would tend to want to make that wider.

-Bigger.

-So, I should widen this?

-Yeah.

But don't lose the river style of the lake.

We don't want too much thickening of the water.

And I think this is a bit suspect.

-That contradicts Johnny, though, doesn't it?

-I'm afraid it does.

-Well, no.

-I think Johnny's wrong.

No, it must look like a river, which means...

It must look like a river is what I'm saying.

'So, the bridge moves and the water widens a bit.'

I really like these, the sinuous edges of the belt,

and I love the clumps along here.

'Tom is worried about the flatness of the site and the water.'

I think the green is there,

because the rest of the parish is effectively ploughed up,

and this is the bit they've left, cos they can't cultivate it,

and they can't cultivate it, because it is basically a sink

where the water is flowing in.

And that, to me, is one of the key problems you've got.

-But he was a master of water management.

-Absolutely.

No, no, absolutely right,

but he has got to deal with the real world

and this is quite a serious challenge.

I can't think of a case where Brown did a landscape

that had serious drainage problems that he didn't manage to solve,

and he did take on some cracking difficult problems in the process.

These wonderful lakes he designed,

you've got earth coming out of that which you could use,

and the question is how you use it,

because they look pretty big and they're going down...

-Well, what are you going to take them down? Any idea?

-4ft.

-A normal amount.

-Yeah, OK.

-Yeah, what he did.

Well, 4ft worth of soil from those spread across here

is probably going to raise the whole area 6 inches, I guess.

-Maximum.

-Max.

-One wouldn't do the whole.

No, that's really the point.

Are you going to be sort of selective

and perhaps raise the clumps?

And, for certain species, you may well need to do that.

'OK, I think we are agreed.

'Brown WOULD have been able to build these lakes.'

So, I'll use earth dug from the lake to raise the clumps of trees,

which will help give them impact while they are growing.

So, I really like this bit.

I really like this valley-like effect.

I would think about trying to bring it round the corner,

so the valley effect might appear to be running on indefinitely

-and you can't quite see it.

-That's a good idea.

So, I could just take the planting round there and remove the column.

'Now the valley appears to go on forever,

'similar to Brown's lake at Blenheim.'

Well, if he didn't retire and rest on his laurels,

I think this would be an enchanting landscape to implement

and it would be great fun to do it, and you've made a lovely job of it.

Thank you very much.

'I think we've all managed to agree,

'so I'm taking the experts' advice and amending my design.'

Now I'm eager to see what it would look like

moving through the landscape as Brown always intended,

so I've come to London to enlist the help of a designer

who can turn my plan into three dimensions

without lifting a shovel.

-I've sent you the drawings and the sketches.

-Excellent.

-But have you managed to bring it to life?

-Yes, we have.

-I'll walk you through what we've done.

-Oh, yeah.

Really exciting to see how it's progressed.

-We've taken your plan...

-Yeah.

-..into 3-D space.

This is really exciting, because Capability's clients,

they didn't have this facility.

They just had to take that massive leap of faith

and wait 50, 100 years to see what you're going to show me,

hopefully, today. Wow!

And, essentially, what we've done

is try to build up some various elements.

So, you can see we're adding fields here.

And these trees you've represented with wireframe, do you call this?

Yes. At the moment, it's like a working model,

so we can edit it, move things around,

and then, when we're happy with all the objects,

we'll work on the lighting and the texturing,

and then we'll render it out.

I can show you some early renders here.

Well, we've tried to just model some of the main elements

to get a sense of the scale and the design,

and hopefully try and flesh out what it might have looked like.

And we can turn the camera right round

and see the view from the house.

And see the church!

Wow, that's dramatic, isn't it, with the lake/river snaking through?

'Jane was adamant the lake should be river-style,

'and that serpentine shape works really well.'

And there's that view, isn't it?

-So, that long view across the narrow length of the site.

-Yeah.

'That view reminds me of the valleys at Milton Abbas, as John suggested.'

It's really helpful. Do you think it's very flat?

It is flat, so we can change that and work on the landscape

and get it to exactly how you want.

So, we could just subtly mould it, do you think?

-Yeah, we can very easily texture the landscape.

-Ooh, show me some moulds.

-This is lovely.

-So, we can just look that up.

-Just give it some differential... Whoa, that's clever.

-Too high?

No, that's good. I don't think so. I don't think so.

-So, I'll move up slightly.

-Whoa, whoa, bring him down.

He was very subtle and gentle. Lovely. That's fine. Brilliant.

'I can see that Tom was right about putting the trees on mounds

'to disguise the flatness of the land.'

So, I've just rendered that out now.

-There we go.

-Whoa!

It's amazing to see the landscape brought to life.

The reflections in the water are really convincing,

the way it bounces light around. It's lovely.

And to see those trees and be able to manipulate them,

it really gives you a good feel.

There's the summerhouse. That's great.

So, from the summerhouse, you would then be away from the house

and see wonderful views, obviously, across the water.

This really reminds me of Burghley

where you come into the back of the summerhouse -

what you think is the front, but, actually, it's the back -

and then you see out at the front

and you see this amazing view of the water and the valley.

You could never tire of that view,

however often you used that summerhouse.

The 3-D animations really give a sense

of how the garden would have looked.

It's so exciting to compare the existing landscape

with what might have been.

There is still one last question -

would even Brown have been able to do this?

So, here we are. Here's the green.

It is very flat.

There's the church.

Do we think it could make a Brown landscape?

Well, I think he must have dreamed about it,

and it is an enchanting and innovative design.

This is clearly a wonderful site for water,

which he would have loved, and making a watery sequence

of river-style lake across it, as you've done.

But Tom has concerns that part of the site was common land,

which could have restricted Brown's scheme.

When Brown owns the manor,

this whole area is an area of common land.

And although he's the Lord of the Manor,

that doesn't mean he can do what he likes with it.

A lot of people in Fenstanton have rights to use this,

so to create an elaborate, designed landscape

with that degree of public access from people so close

would be problematic.

So, could he have done anything about it?

He could have done. He could have done two things.

He could have bought out all the other commoners

or he could have brought about a parliamentary enclosure himself.

Of course, if Brown's clients faced a similar problem,

they could afford to move the village,

as happened at Milton Abbas in Dorset.

Most of the people that he is working for,

they have large estates. They're very wealthy people

who have already enclosed their common land.

They don't have these kind of patches of common

literally on their doorstep, in this particular case.

We have to hope that Brown's negotiation skills

would have found a compromise with the villagers.

I think it's got a lot of potential. I think...

Your two big features are the church, obviously,

and then I would be looking, standing here looking out

and seeing this, your valley idea,

because I think you've already got big trees going round the village,

and then leading the eye off in this direction.

And where you've got those big, tall poplars,

that's where the valley was going to run away, the valley effect.

And I think that could be really good.

It is sad that Brown never made Fenstanton his own masterpiece,

but I think we have created something that we can justify

calling Capability Brown's unfinished garden.