Landscape & Western Pleasure Ground
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Landscape & Western Pleasure Ground
Before 1770 the area immediately surrounding Heaton Hall would have been a series of formal gardens, terraces and radiating avenues. This was the year that Sir Thomas Egerton (later 1st Earl of Wilton) commissioned William Emes to reshape it to set off his new home. Interestingly this was two years before James Wyatt was given the task of remodelling the 17th century house.
Emes was a follower of Capability Brown and his landscapes were characterised by boundary belts of trees, with scattered circular groves of trees set in pasture with serpentine drives. The landscape he created for Sir Thomas set the James Wyatt neo-classical house in large fields divided by hedges with judiciously placed clumps of trees. In an 1802 watercolour the area close to the house is given over to pasture with clear views downhill to the south. The Temple, designed by Wyatt as an eye-catcher on the highest point in Manchester, can also be seen in this view. It is traditionally said to have been used by Sir Thomas as an observatory and was restored in Phase 1 of the Heritage Lottery Fund restoration of the park.
Early in the 19th century with the change in fashion towards the more romantic approach to landscape, Sir Thomas (or Lord Wilton as he had become) took Humphrey Repton's advice and in 1803 transformed a plain 18th century house to the north west of the house into a garden temple portico. This has come to be known as the Dower House but there is no evidence to show that it has ever been used as such. This too was restored and is now the home of the Manchester Beekeepers Association. It is open to the public on Sunday afternoons.
In 1807 Lord Wilton called on John Webb to make further alterations to the park. Webb's style differs from Emes in that he adopted Repton's more picturesque style. Emes' changed the area behind the stables, laying out a flower garden (the Western Pleasure Ground) and planting mixed woodland and shrubberies with a meandering path through the Dell towards the newly created kitchen garden (now the Horticultural Centre).
The historic landscape around the Hall and the Western Pleasure Ground was restored in the Heritage Lottery Fund project.
The historical content of this page has been written with reference to the following publications:
1. Transactions of Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society (1983) - The 1st & 2nd Earls of Wilton and the Creation of Heaton House by James Lomax MA. Vol 82 Moxon Press Ltd, Ilkley
2. Heaton Hall: A Short Account of its History & Architecture. Manchester City Council Cultural Services Dept, Manchester City Art Galleries, 1984.
More information about Heaton Hall and the Wilton Estate can be found in the Greater Manchester County Record Office.