Five historic landscapes symbolize five extraordinary couples. Historic landscapes and landscape gardens chronicle the fashions and trends of the times that shaped them.

Overview

Five historic landscapes symbolize five extraordinary couples. Historic landscapes and landscape gardens chronicle the fashions and trends of the times that shaped them. Four of the landscapes described below result from relationships of enduring love; the fifth is a backdrop for lust masquerading as love.

England

16th Century

Henry VIII acted out his lecherous pursuit of Anne Boleyn against the backdrop of Hever Castle estate and gardens. Hever was Anne's childhood home in the Kent countryside. Anne and Henry wed in 1533; her execution on false charges followed on 19 May 1536.

Joanna Denny writes in Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen (Da Capo Press, 2006) that Hever was originally a 13th century moated stone manor house. In 1505, Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, changed the structure into "a modern and fashionable family seat for the new Boleyn dynasty."

The Tudor contribution to gardening was the knot garden, patterns of lawn and hedges, viewed from a mount, or raised walk. Authentic Tudor gardens do not exist today. However, a fine reproduction exists at Hampton Court Palace where Henry and Anne spent their honeymoon.

20th Century

Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson began making Sissinghurst Castle Garden in 1930 around remains of an Elizabethan manor house. Sackville-West died in 1962, Nicolson in 1968. Nicholson and their two sons completed ownership transfer of Sissinghurst to the National Trust by April 1967.

Nicholson was the pragmatist, while Sackville-West the romanticist in creating the gardens. He designed the garden rooms; she furnished them. The making of this garden was partially responsible for keeping their marriage intact. Nigel Nicholson describes the atypical bonds and marriage of his parents in Portrait of a Marriage (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1973)

Victoria Glendinning writes in Vita: A Biography of Vita Sackville-West (Alfred A. Knopf 1983) that today Sissinghurst Castle garden is a world-class garden which shows that "constant experiment and renewal are part of the life of the garden, which is visited by tens of thousands of people every year."

America - New England

Late 18th and Early 19th Century

Abigail (1781-1826) and John Adams (1781-1826) began married life on a rock-strewn New England farm near Braintree, MA (now Quincy). Abigail ran the home and farm, paid bills and taught the children. John opened his law office here and started a career in politics and law.

John's commitment to the American Revolution and emergent American nation meant long absences from Abigail and his family. Abigail continuously wrote letters to John of farm and family news when she could not be with him. She also reported on Revolutionary doings in the Boston area. The TV film John and Abigail Adams (The American Experience 23 January 2006) describes John and Abigail as "The original power couple."

The Adams National Historical Park is now located in a modern city. The Adams landscape has almost vanished. However, the Old House grounds include a historic orchard and an 18th-century style formal garden containing annual and perennial flowers.

France

18th Century

Louis XV originally built the Petit Trianon located within the grounds of Versailles Palace near Paris as a gift to his mistress Madame de Pompadour. Louis XVI gave Petit Trianon as a gift to Marie Antoinette when he ascended France's throne in 1775.

Marie Antoinette indulged her taste for natural simplicity of the Petit Trianon with a design in the naturalistic "English style," completely opposite the formal, symmetrical "French style" Versailles gardens. The Trianon gardens included

• paths, hills and streams,
• a small neo-Classical Temple of Love, and
• an ersatz farming village (The Petit Hameau / The Little Hamlet).

India

17th Century

In December 1631, Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal Emperor, ordered the Taj Mahal built as a mausoleum and memorial for his beloved favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It is located in Uttar Pradesh, Agra District, India. This white marble construction completed the promise that he made to her as she died, "To erect a monument to match her beauty."

An online virtual tour enables visitors to explore the "UNESCO World Heritage Site". Visitors may also tour 22 different areas of the monument and gardens through 360° panoramas, maps, narrated mini-movies, music and text.

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© Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage. 2008. Reproduction without permission prohibited.