91³Ô¹ÏÍø

Person    | Male  Born /8/1716  Died 6/2/1783

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

Categories: Gardens / Agriculture

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

Landscapte architect. Baptised in Northumberland. The 'Capability' came from his habit of declaring estates to have 'capability' for improvement, rather than being a description of his skills. Nowadays it would be 'Potential', or Potty to his friends, possibly. Worked on hundreds of gardens, turning down work in Ireland because he had not yet finished England. A skilled user of the ha-ha. The gardens at Blenheim Palace are a good example of his work.

Worked with the architect Henry Holland and then from about 1771 with his son, also Henry who, in 1773 married Brown's daughter,Bridget (1744–1828).

Lived at The Mall, Hammersmith from 1751 - 1764 when he moved to Wilderness House, where the plaque is, and where he died, possibly. Reading Wikipedia and the Oxford Dictionary of National Bigraphy one gets two stories of his death. The other being that he died at Bridget's house in Hertford Street.

2016: English Heritage's post - .

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

Commemorated ati

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, 1716 - 1783, landscape architect lived here, 176...

91³Ô¹ÏÍø

Other Subjects

Task Force Trees

Task Force Trees

Countryside Commission's Task Force Tree Programme

Group, Gardens / Agriculture

2 memorials
Charles Bridgeman

Charles Bridgeman

Landscape gardener.  As Royal Gardener 1726-38, he laid out Kensington Gardens for Queen Caroline.  Apart from when he was staying away on the job, he lived from 1723 to  his death at what is now 5...

Person, Gardens / Agriculture

3 memorials
William Andrews Nesfield

William Andrews Nesfield

The Regent's Park plaque has the date of birth as 1794 but this contradicts all the other sources we have found, which have 1793. Nesfield was a significant Victorian garden designer who had a rep...

Person, Gardens / Agriculture

1 memorial
Lieutenant Harry Leopold Pollak

Lieutenant Harry Leopold Pollak

Harry Leopold Pollak was born on 18 July 1885 in Marylebone, Middlesex (now Greater London), the second of the eight children of Joseph Pollak (1847-1927) and Emma Jane Pollak née Goldmann (1863-19...

Person, Armed Forces, Gardens / Agriculture, Argentina, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial