Harold Ainsworth Peto

Somerleyton Hall, the 1880 family seat, from Morriss, Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen

Harold Ainsworth Peto (born July 11, 1854 in 12 Palace Gardens in Westminster , London , † April 16, 1933 at Iford Manor , Wiltshire ) was an English architect and garden designer.

Life

Hartham Park, Wiltshire, the new water basin, historic photograph from 1903

His father was the squire, MP and speculator Sir Samuel Morton Peto (1809-1889) of Somerleyton Hall in Lowestoft , Suffolk , who went bankrupt in 1866 through speculation in railway construction; his mother Sarah Ainsworth (1821-1892), his father's second wife, was the daughter of a textile manufacturer. Peto was the sixth of ten children, the fifth son. Peto spent his youth in Somerleyton Hall, his father's estate with large, typically Victorian gardens and a large conservatory, until it was sold to Sir Francis Crossley in 1863. After his father went bankrupt, the family lived off the mother's fortune, so Peto grew up in a very wealthy family. From 1869 to 1871, Peto attended the private Harrow School . He then did an apprenticeship as a builder at J. Clements in Lowestoft. In 1874 he joined the London architecture firm Karslake and Mortimer. 1871-1892 he was partner of Ernest George . Her students included Guy Dauber , Herbert Baker, and Edwin Lutyens . Peto's social connections drew numerous customers. After the partnership was dissolved in 1892, he moved to Kent , and in 1896 near Salisbury in Wiltshire . He traveled to continental Europe, the United States (1887), Egypt (1892–93), Sicily (1895), and in 1898 to the Far East. After that he decided not to travel overseas anymore. After the dissolution of the partnership with George he was not allowed to practice in Great Britain for 15 years and therefore often worked for English emigrants and summer guests on the French Riviera.

Iford Manor, grand terrace stairs

In 1899 he and his friend Avray visited Tipping Iford Manor, an Elizabethan mansion with a Georgian facade from 1725 near Bradford-on-Avon . He bought it and designed its garden in the Italian style . However, there was also a small Japanese garden. The garden is adorned with numerous architectural fragments, statues, sarcophagi and Renaissance garden ornaments that he bought together in Italy. He was to live here until his death.

After 1918, Peto stopped designing gardens. He died unmarried and was buried in Chedington , Dorset .

plant

Italian garden in Garinish, Ireland

Iford Manor

• Bridge House, Weybridge , Surrey, late 1890s, owner Henry Seymour Trower (1843–1912)
• Buscott Park , Faringdon, Oxon, 18th century mansion, expanded in 1904, notably the water garden
• Easton Lodge, Essex , 1902-1903, Countess Warwick
• Hartham Park at Chippenham , Wiltshire, 1903, owner John Dickson-Poynder MP
• Iford Manor, Frome Valley, Wiltshire, now a listed building
• Ilnacullin, Garinish , Ireland
• Isola Bella, Californie near Cannes , owner van André, 1909. Garden only
• Villa Maryland , Alpes-Maritimes , France, 1904, owner Arthur Wilson, Renaissance style and formal garden
• Villa Rosemary, French Riviera , 1908, owner Arthur Cohen, 1 ha, in the style of the Italian Renaissance
• Villa Sylvia, Cap St. Jean Ferrat , 1902, owner Ralph Curtis. It is considered to be the "most English" of Peto's gardens
• Wayford Manor , Somerset, 13th century manor house
• West Dean , Sussex: pergola

Garden pond in Buscott Park

style

Peto was associated with both Neo-Classicism (Neo-Italian School) and the Arts and Crafts Movement , the English variant of Art Nouveau . He believed that the house and garden should match the surrounding landscape and fit together. So he preferred to use local stone when he did not resort to marble. Hicks describes his style as "Renaissance revival", i.e. Renaissance- Rennaisance.

He usually designed not only the building, but also the furniture and the flower beds. Among other things, he admired the Villa Hadriana in Tivoli and built numerous buildings and gardens in the style of the Italian Renaissance . Its gardens often contained open staircases, loggias and colonnades in the Italian style. In the design of Villa Rosemary, he imitated elements from the Generalife . He used plants primarily as ornament. He saw them as a subordinate element, as, in his opinion, was also the case in the Renaissance. He believed that old buildings and ruins created a connection to the past that could not be achieved through plants alone. In the Villa Maryland he designed a "Roman garden", but this was not an attempt to recreate an antique garden, but merely a pastiche with a garden house in the form of a temple with Ionic columns and portrait heads in an antique style that were placed on columns . Gardens should be a balanced mix of stone architectural elements and plants.

In Isola Bella, Peto used a garden shed and a wide flight of stairs to connect the house and garden, in Buscot Park a series of formal ponds. A water lily pond is also an important design element in Iford.

Wayford Manor, terrace

Most of Peto's gardens are in the Italian or generally "Mediterranean" style, which combined Italian, Spanish and English elements or adapted them to English tastes. However, Peto was also very impressed with Japanese gardens - he had visited the country in 1898. Bridge House's garden contained a Japanese tea house .

Peto's influence was stronger in France than in England, where it was quickly forgotten and only gradually being rediscovered.

Publications

• with Robin Whalley and Richard Shirley Smith: The boke of Iford. Libanus, Marlborough 1993, ISBN 0-948021-30-6 .

literature

• Janet Waymark: Modern garden design, innovation since 1900. Thames and Hudson, London 2003, ISBN 0-500-51112-8 , pp. 13-16.
• Robin Whalley: Peto, Harold Ainsworth (1854-1933) . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Somerleyton Hall & Gardens. History. In: visit.somerleyton.co.uk. Retrieved February 20, 2017 . 
2. ↑ David Ottewil, The Edwardian Garden. Newhaven, Yale University Press 1989, 146
3. ↑ Robin Whalley: Peto, Harold Ainsworth (1854-1933). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, May 2008; online edn, May 2010 accessed 19 Dec 2013
4. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 34.
5. ↑ David Ottewil, The Edwardian Garden. Newhaven, Yale University Press 1989, 147
6. ↑ David Ottewil, The Edwardian Garden. Newhaven, Yale University Press 1989, 146
7. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 42
8. ↑ ifordmanor.co.uk ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 37
10. ^ David Hicks, Cotswold Gardens. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1995, 62
11. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 35
12. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 45
13. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 45
14. ^ David Hicks, Cotswold Gardens. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1995, 62
15. ↑ George Plumptree: Great gardens, great designers. Seven dials, London 1994, p. 64
16. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 39
17. ↑ George Plumptree: Great gardens, great designers. Seven dials, London 1994, p. 64
18. ↑ George Plumptree: Great gardens, great designers. Seven dials, London 1994, pp. 66, 127
19. ↑ Robin Whalley: Peto, Harold Ainsworth (1854-1933). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, May 2008; online edn, May 2010 accessed 21 Dec 2013
20. ^ Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden abroad. Penguin, London 1992, p. 43.