J. Seeley, ‘Plan of the Gardens’ from Stowe: a Description of the House and Gardens of the most Noble and Puissant Prince, George Grenville Nugent Temple, Marquis of Buckingham (Buckingham: J. Seeley, 1798). Syn.7.79.75(10)

Public interest in the British landscape (natural and constructed, real and represented) was accompanied in the closing years of the eighteenth century by an appetite for a more practical understanding of garden design and construction. This may have reflected the growing number of manufacturers and scientists who were purchasing substantial estates with their newly-acquired wealth, but was also perhaps a consequence of the rapidly evolving printing industry. Seeley’s description was lavishly illustrated with attractive views, but also incorporated a detailed plan and key, for those seeking either to navigate the grounds or to understand the manner in which the various schemes and structures fitted into the garden entire. Stowe was one of Brown’s earliest and most famous commissions where, in the 1740s, he designed and oversaw the laying out of the Grecian Valley.