Bicton

Early C18 formal gardens with later C18 and C19 structures, set in C18 and C19 parkland and pleasure grounds with a mid C19 arboretum, on which W S Gilpin, John Webb and J C Loudon advised. For full description view the Historic England Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

Original layout of the formal gardens with its axial vista dates from c 1735. But the present appearance of this and the surrounding park land is largely the work of John, Lord Rolle, and his second wife Louisa Trefusis on the advice of W S Gilpin circa 1830/40. The reason for this high designation is that the parkland, designed by Gilpin, was in his distinctive style of clumps of trees planted in an “amoeboid pattern”. The lake he created at Bicton has inlets and promontories mirroring the outline of the tree planting.  It is quite simply unlike anything usually encountered in an English landscape park. Comparatively few of his designs survive in a recognizable form today.

Kim Auston, Landscape Architect Western Territory for English Heritage