JAMES GRASBY: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.

I'm James Grasby, a senior curator for the National Trust,

and today I'm heading to one of England's most densely populated

counties, to a little pocket of peace where you can find

sanctuary in a garden of winding paths and lakeside walks.

But go back in history. Claremont Landscape Garden was

more a journey into a world of fantasy, hedonism and wild

abandonment.

Before I head to Surrey to discover more of Claremont's

fascinating history, I thought I'd take you on a journey of

escapism. To the world of TV and one of the hottest costume

dramas. This is Bridgerton, set in Regency-era London. [Sound of

Bridgerton - Courtesy of Netflix]

Think lavish London dos. [Sound of Bridgerton - Courtesy of

Netflix]

Think scandal and love rivalry. And you get the picture. [

GENERIC: Sound of Bridgerton - Courtesy of Netflix] My mama had

to stay home with her. Papa had to chaperone.

I'm quite enjoying the fact that he is here. Mama would never

allow me to wear a dress like this. Not yellow enough, I

think. Mr Bridgeton. I believe you owe me a dance this eveing.

And I have only one more space remaining on my card perhaps-

how convenient! Penelope, I did not see you there.

I'm afraid I cannot offer you that dance, Miss Cowper. I am to

escort Miss Featherington to the floor.

JAMES GRASBY: That scene was set at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens,

the outdoor entertainment venue of its day. Vauxhall was a

public garden to be seen at. Claremont, where I'm headed

tomorrow, was invitation only, but it was also a place to

party.

I've arrived after an evening watching Bridgerton.

Leaving the busy road and with one or two rather noisy

aircraft, I'm entering what looks to be a leafy paradise.

Welcome to Claremont, the sign says. There is a pretty

pavilion, which looks like the ticket office. It's even got a

white dove on the roof. What could be more lovely?

Hello.

GENERIC: Hello.

JAMES GRASBY: Good morning. I wonder if you could show me the

way to my friend Rebecca Wallace.

GENERIC: Follow me. She's over by the rowing boat. It's

Charlotte and Victoria.

JAMES GRASBY: Thank you very much indeed. Victoria and

Charlotte, the rowing boat.

This looks very promising. An arched opening in this leafy

glade. And there is my friend, Rebecca.

REBECCA WALLACE: Hello, James.

JAMES GRASBY: What a beautiful morning. It's spring.

REBECCA WALLACE: Look at the sunshine reflecting on the lake.

And you've got the geese coming over to say hello as well.

JAMES GRASBY: Behind you is a lake going off into the far

distance. Pristine lawns and rising ground with trees and all

the promise of temples and little bits and pieces. It's got

a big story this place?

REBECCA WALLACE: It has! It's arguably one of the most

well-known gardens of its day. We're talking 300 years ago.

It's monumental in terms of scale, ambition, in terms of the

setting.

JAMES GRASBY: I can resist it no longer. Let's go for a walk.

What, to your mind, makes it so incredible and important?

REBECCA WALLACE: It's a succession of very wealthy and

influential owners. And they had the opportunity and the means to

take on the very best garden designers of the era in the 18th

century.

JAMES GRASBY: Rebecca, it's taken my breath away.

REBECCA WALLACE: We're walking along a path which was once the

original Portsmouth Road. The road was relocated in the 18th

century at great expense to ensure the privacy of the owners

of Claremont and the fact they probably didn't want something

to disturb the most magical landscape that you see around

you today.

JAMES GRASBY: That's a lovely idea, diverting a sort of HS2 so

that you could build yourself a garden.

REBECCA WALLACE: And it's incredible to think that the

ability to do that, but also to make sure that the garden looks

at its very finest. And you can see all these features as we're

walking around.

On the left-hand side across the lake, we've got the bell aisle,

as it was called, with the building in the centre.

That would originally have had a bridge to it. We'll be coming up

shortly to the grotto.

You know, all of these features that were so important to give a

sense of surprise and joy and interest to people.

What's really interesting about Claremont is the time that it's

developed in the 18th century is exactly at the same time as

there's a huge amount of social change in terms of expectation

about what gardens should do and what they should offer,

particularly in terms of entertainment.

They are pleasure gardens rather than productive crop growing

gardens.

They are spaces to gather, to escape your troubles.

Those that were very wealthy, it was becoming almost expected

that you would have a pleasure ground, a pleasure garden like

this to entertain, to host events, to stage large galas and

to really impress your neighbours.

It was very much about looking at what Duke of such and such

had done and then try and copy it yourself.

So we're going to continue around the garden. We met by the

boats and the current garden entrance.

That actually wasn't the original entrance that visitors

to Claremont in the 18th century would have seen. We would have

come from the other end of the garden, but we'll walk round and

show you the moments of reveal and views that would have been

intended.

JAMES GRASBY: How lovely. Lead the way.

REBECCA WALLACE: Will do!

JAMES GRASBY: Rebecca, that was a brisk climb. I wasn't

expecting that.

This is the margins of the garden, but in the distance, I

can see a four-square classical house, which I guess is

Claremont?

REBECCA WALLACE: This would have been the visitor entrance to the

gardens. So you can get a sense here of how visitors would have

walked from the house across the landscape and accessed the

formal gardens.

JAMES GRASBY: So Rebecca, as a visitor, I've arrived here. This

was the entrance to the garden and there is the great house.

But who was I coming to see?

REBECCA WALLACE: Guests to Claremont in the 18th century

were visiting the Duke and Duchess Of Newcastle.

Thomas Pelham-Holles and his wife Henrietta lived here for

about 40, 50 years. They were socially very well connected.

He was a politician for over 30 years and prime minister twice

and was hosting events here for the great and the good of the

day.

So we're talking politicians, nobility, dare I say royalty at

times. He and his wife would host these large gatherings akin

to fête champêtres.

JAMES GRASBY: Fête champêtre, that has lovely resonances,

fates and gardens, pleasure and fun outside.

REBECCA WALLACE: And Claremont lends itself to that. And, you

know, whether he's hosting a large party, a large fete or

garden party, as we might call it today, or a small intimate

gathering, the variety of entertainment on offer, the

music that might be played, the games that might be played.

There are moments around this garden where you could really do

as your heart desires.

JAMES GRASBY: Hundreds of people in glamorous outfits, music,

jollity, drink, food, fun.

REBECCA WALLACE: Places like Claremont were really incredibly

important because they were places where people could

network as well as socialise and be entertained. And it was

incredibly important in terms of that ability to get on in

society.

DAVID COKE: Really ordinary people in smaller houses didn't

socialise very much. There was a hole in the market. I'm David

Coke and I'm a social historian specialising in the Georgian

Pleasure Gardens of London.

The trip to Vauxhall started usually with a trip over the

river. It really represented a kind of separation from ordinary

life in London, from your business, from your stresses and

strains, from all your worries. And you would leave them behind,

find Vauxhall Gardens. The first thing you'd notice would be the

music.

The bandstand was surrounded by things called supper boxes,

which were a bit like theatre boxes, where people would go to

have a bite to eat.

When I say a bite, that's really what it was. The food was very

sparse and extremely expensive. Sitting in your supper box, you

could watch the other people going by, and one of the great

joys of Vauxhall was to see the other people there.

See who they were with, see what they were wearing, see how

expensive they looked, and see who was rushing off one of the

dark walks with somebody else so you would know who was pairing

up with who.

And that was all part of the gossip of the time.

Later on, the entertainment became much more, I suppose,

popular.

There were things like tightrope dancers.

An American brought his wild cats, lions, tigers, cheetahs,

leopards.

So he would take in a lamb or something like that or a small

child and show them how well trained they were.

I often get asked what it was like to be there. It's a

difficult question to answer because there isn't anything

like it in modern life. It's a sort of slightly strange

offspring of the Buckingham Palace Garden Party and

Glastonbury.

JAMES GRASBY: Rebecca, you've brought me out of the wind into

this lovely area of lawn.

Claremont is full of surprises.

REBECCA WALLACE: Claremont is full of these amazing surprises.

And then we have a real showstopper to show you later.

JAMES GRASBY: Have you?

REBECCA WALLACE: But before that, I'd like to introduce

Graham Alderton, our head gardener here.

JAMES GRASBY: Graham, how do you do?

GRAHAM ALDERTON: How do you do, James?

JAMES GRASBY: You're the luckiest man alive. I am. It's

beautiful.

GRAHAM ALDERTON: Claremont is incredibly important. As it

charts the history, the origins of the English landscape

movement, we had four of the most influential designers

leaving their mark on the landscape here.

First of all, we have Vanbrugh. If you look behind you, you can

see the Belvedere. And then the pleasure garden all comes out

from this area.

JAMES GRASBY: Wow. Graham, Claremont, you both have

ambushed me again. That is extraordinary. I mean, the

ground rises. That's about 150 metres, I guess, to the top,

with beautiful symmetrical beech hedges, neatly clipped by your

fair hands, I guess?

GRAHAM ALDERTON: He builds this not long after he sells it to

Thomas Pelham-Holles. Bridgeman came in just after Vanbrugh.

Bridgeman puts in the pond, the amphitheatre, and a few walks so

the Duke can get his daily exercise. William Kent then is

brought in.

Kent is very much the instigator of the English landscape

movement.

He gets rid of the formal lines. He introduces meandering walks,

and he puts in small buildings.

Then we have Capability Brown, who had a very light touch. The

area around the current house, the only area where there's a

Brownian landscape, big, wide, open vistas.

JAMES GRASBY: You're in a long line, a long trajectory, of

people who have loved this place, nurtured it. And also

thought deeply about it.

GRAHAM ALDERTON: To be able to work in the footsteps of

Vanbrugh, Bridgeman, Kent and Brown is quite a rarity, but

some of these designers worked at Stowe as well, which I

understand you're familiar with?

In fact, you were watching it yesterday, whilst you were

watching an episode of Bridgerton.

Bridgerton was actually filmed at Stowe.

HANNAH GREIG: To be at Stowe to film the Vauxhall Gardens scenes

for Bridgerton was just one of the most transporting and

remarkable nights of my life.

I'm Hannah Greig, Professor of history and a consultant to film

and television.

The gardens were just absolutely packed with supporting artists.

It was full of colour and noise and drama.

We had music and fireworks.

There was dancing and you could get a sense of what it was like

to be at a public pleasure garden in the 18th century.

How thrilling and new, as if something incredible was just

about to happen that night.

I've always loved that sense of a closeness to the past, of

visiting historic houses and thinking about who lived there

or who visited there, who those ghosts were, what their stories

were like, were they people like me or not, what were their lives

like.

And much of my academic historical research is based in

archives, dealing with letters and diaries.

It can sometimes feel slightly removed from the actual

environments and locations and places.

And then when I'm filming, it does almost feel like you're

transplanted back into a different era.

And it's exciting to see those locations brought to life in a

way that's similar to the way in which they would have been

experienced in the past.

GRAHAM ALDERTON: Ok, well, if we all go up these steps, I'll

introduce you to our showstopper.

JAMES GRASBY: We're walking up really quite a steep flight of

gravel steps. And there's a pristine, perfect line on the

horizon. Could be a cliff edge that you're leading me to.

What an absolutely sensational view. This is a great vantage

point. And in front of us is your garden.

GRAHAM ALDERTON: It is.

JAMES GRASBY: Falling away down to the sparkly lake in the

spring light is a series of terraces. We're above the

amphitheatre.

This is a terrific sight, isn't it? And very unexpected. Wow.

Rebecca, it feels a bit like being in the upper circle of a

huge theatre, doesn't it?

REBECCA WALLACE: This is the prime view as you came from the

house to see what you could go and explore.

You can just tantalisingly see the island and the lake as it

curves round and the paths that would take you across. But also

really important to think about the wider views.

Behind us, we've got amazing views of London, but also down

into Surrey and to the other estates as well.

So you are getting some of the prime views, not only of this

garden, but also of the neighbourhood and what else was

going on.

So it was a real vantage point. You're absolutely right, that

point about the upper circle, this was the prime spot to be

in.

JAMES GRASBY: You could keep an eye on developing relationships

between new lovers.

REBECCA WALLACE: Who's crossing the bridge together? Who's

sailing on the lake? Who's maybe tucking themselves around a

corner into an avenue of trees to make sure that they're not

seen?

JAMES GRASBY: Rebecca, it's a place designed for pleasure and

parties. The Fête champêtre sounds stunning, and of course

it would be a lovely thing to do it again.

I mean, when was the last time a Fête champêtre happened here?

REBECCA WALLACE: About 20 years ago.

But actually, it was about 200 years before that that they

probably stopped happening.

So after the Duke and Duchess Of Newcastle sell the property,

after a succession of owners, it then becomes owned by the royal

family.

Princess Charlotte and Leopold live here. Just behind me,

actually, at the top of the amphitheatre, we have the

remains, the foundations of a monument to Princess Charlotte.

They were much celebrated, both as a couple, but particularly

her as the only legitimate daughter of George IV The King.

Her husband, Prince Leopold, erected a monument after her

death, aged just 21, in childbirth in 1817.

When she died, there was a public outpouring of grief.

People were absolutely devastated for her and for the

family. And so Leopold used a tea house structure to allow

people to grieve and himself to grieve her.

And it was really that moment that shifted people's

perceptions of Claremont.

And we see a period of time where the idea of partying here

is not a priority.

Royal families do live here and they do entertain, but not on

the scale that we'd seen before.

It was only after a period of renovation in the 20th century

by the National Trust that the idea came to the Trust to

celebrate this transformation of the garden with a series of Fête

champêtres.

That's not to say that the type of Fête champêtress didn't

happen elsewhere in the country at other great gardens. And

indeed, today they continue.

Lots of country houses now will make a second income by hosting

these amazing festivals, which are in many ways the modern day

equivalent of a Fête champêtre.

JAMES GRASBY: And there's a very, very real appetite here

for increasingly giving pleasure and fun to visitors.

REBECCA WALLACE: Absolutely. And I don't know if you noticed at

the start when we met with the boats, the boats are all named

after the royal family.

JAMES GRASBY: Of course they are.

REBECCA WALLACE: And so they are boats that, you know, people can

enjoy on the lake. So it's tying that back into the history of

the place, but also allowing people to enjoy the fun, the

leisure, the pleasure of this garden.

JAMES GRASBY: As I reluctantly head back to my car ahead of my

journey home, I'm wondering whether I'll get back in time to

squeeze in another episode of Bridgerton before I go to bed.

That's the trouble with box sets! They are moreish!

But having seen Claremont and all its beautiful features, and

hearing how they would have been used for the ultimate garden

party, it does make me wish we could travel back in time and

experience a period in history for ourselves, to see what it

was really like, even just for one day.

Now, when I visit wonderful gardens and admire them for the

vistas, the architectural features, the winding footpaths,

those secret corners and shaded walkways, I shall imagine the

setting as the backdrop to a great party, a Buckingham Palace

Garden Party meeting Glastonbury.

And as I'm watching the next episode of Bridgerton, I shall

look past the lavish costumes and the dancing and the scandal

a little and pay more attention to another star of the show, the

setting.

Thanks for listening to the National Trust podcast. And

remember, if you've enjoyed this episode, you can find more audio

programmes from the National Trust at

nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts. We'll be back soon with another

episode. But for now, from me, James Grasby, goodbye.