Thought this might be of interest to you all. I love the composition of the design. Wouldn't it just make a great starting point for a textile piece! Maybe something to look out for Dunham Massey? Perhaps they still have the original plans displayed in the house.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/4697835/Capability-Browns-first-garden-plan-to-be-brought-to-life-after-250-years.html
Click on the link above to see the plan
Capability Brown’s first garden plan Kirkharle, Northumberland
The sketch, believed to be Brown's first garden plan, covers around 100 acres of rolling Northumberland countryside close to where he was born in 1716.
It will take around 18 months to plant out the design at Kirkharle, subject to funding and permission to alter the Grade II listed parkland.
Brown was born and grew up in Kirkharle, 20 miles north west of Newcastle Upon Tyne, and it was there that the farmer's son first learned his craft as a "gardener's boy".
Christened Lancelot, he was won his nickname because he would tell prospective clients their land had "a lot of capabilities".
He became England's finest landscape architect and gardener, and was responsible for creating over 170 parks and gardens at some of the country's finest estates, including Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, and Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.
The sketch of his ideas for Kirkharle lay hidden in a desk drawer until John Anderson, the current owner of Kirkharle Courtyard, where Brown lived, discovered it in 1980.
It shows plans for blocks containing hundreds of beech, oak, Scots pine, shrubs and fruit trees. The centrepiece of the sketch is a serpentine lake, and Mr Anderson, whose family bought the land in 1833, hopes to create a network of footpaths allowing visitors through the land.
He said: "We found the plan in my grandfather's papers. It either came with the property or was bought separately at the time.
"Recent research suggests this was Brown's first plan, which he completed before he left Kirkharle aged 23.
"What better way to celebrate Northumberland's most famous son by recreating that vision?
""It really is a unique opportunity to create a stunning public visitor attraction."
Kirkharle Courtyard has been turned into a centre for arts and crafts boutiques and receives 50,000 visitors a year.
Natural England has backed the project, which Mr Anderson hopes will be completed within 18 months.
Trees played a great part in Brown's vision, which was in contrast to the formal, fussy gardens and grounds that went before, and the Kirkharle masterplan will include three major stands of woodland covering nine acres.
Neil Dixon, Woodland Officer with the Forestry Commission, which has supplied a £4,000 grant for the project, said: "It's certainly one of the most unusual planting schemes we have backed - in fact one designed by the nation's most celebrated landscape architect.
"The result will be a stunning new parkland with the key elements Brown conceived 270 years ago."
Daily Telegraph 2009
