How a historic British estate embraced Chinese garden design

As Chinese-inspired English landscape gardens became the height of fashion in the 18th century, landowner and garden designer Coplestone Bampfylde created a wild, winding walk through the grounds of his Hestercombe Estate.

Join CGTN Europe Russell Beard on a journey to discover how these grounds embrace the principles of Chinese garden design.

#tracesofchina

[Music] as the Chinese inspired English landscape Garden became the height of fashion in the 18th century landowner and garden designer Cobblestone bamfield created a wild winding walk through the grounds of his estate it doesn’t appear to be a kind of a a construct does it doesn’t feel like a garden does it right and and a lot of people walk through here and think this is just the landscape this is just what this is just what walks are like right um but actually it’s very managed so from here you have a glimpse through to the mosum you don’t want to see the whole thing you want that bit of interest and then the view across the pond you get a glimpse of where you’ve been in the Octan summerhouse down there and then across the pond in the vea tunon the idea of the borrowed view is a big part of every Chinese Garden and there’s a whole science attached to this you have distant borrowed views which are mostly mountains you have adjacent views which could be other buildings and the idea is you make use of objects which can be seen which are actually Beyond The Garden itself but you calculate very precisely where to put your garden features to make use of Those Distant views so instead of everything being laid out like a geometrical pattern you’ve got a much more natural garden with a sequence of surprises is and Views that you only get when you reach a particular point [Music]