Landscapes

ISSN: 1466-2035 (Print) 2040-8153 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ylan20

Constructing Eighteenth-century Meaning in

a Prehistoric Landscape: Charles Bridgemans
Design for Amesbury Abbey
Sue Haynes
To cite this article: Sue Haynes (2013) Constructing Eighteenth-century Meaning in a
Prehistoric Landscape: Charles Bridgemans Design for Amesbury Abbey, Landscapes, 14:2,
155-173
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1466203513Z.00000000018

Published online: 03 Dec 2013.

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landscapes, Vol. 14 No. 2, November, 2013, 155173

Constructing Eighteenth-century
Meaning in a Prehistoric Landscape:
Charles Bridgemans Design for
Amesbury Abbey
Sue Haynes
University of East Anglia

It is commonly assumed that impressive prehistoric monuments influence the

construction of subsequent landscapes in the same place. The work of the
English garden designer Charles Bridgeman (16901738), characterised by his
attention to genius loci and the large scales at which he worked, might be
expected to exemplify this. This article explores this contention in the context
of his 1738 design for an ornamental landscape at Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire,
containing the remains of an Iron Age hillfort and Bronze Age barrows, and in
close proximity to Stonehenge. It finds that superficially the incorporation of
Iron Age ramparts into Bridgemans design, and the construction of a quasiRoman grotto known locally as Gays Cave, suggests some attempt to echo
Amesburys prehistoric origins, and it is likely that Bridgemans response, and
that of his patrons, was influenced by the new findings of seventeenth- and
early eighteenth-century antiquarian research. Yet Bridgemans design
mutilates some prehistoric earthworks and its sight-lines ignore significant
prehistoric elements in the wider landscape. This article therefore concludes
that Bridgemans design was mainly driven by topographical and practical
considerations, with any apparent echoing of prehistory being strongly filtered
through an eighteenth-century Augustan aesthetic.
keywords Charles Bridgeman, Amesbury Abbey, Late-geometric Garden,
Stonehenge Landscape, Eighteenth-century Antiquarianism

Introduction
Amesbury Abbey stands on the River Avon within the Stonehenge heritage landscape,
three kilometres east of the monument itself. It is a historically multi-layered place,
and this article considers the relationship between two of its layers, the 1738 landscape

Oxbow Books Ltd 2013

DOI 10.1179/1466203513Z.00000000018

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figure 1 Charles Bridgemans design for Amesbury Abbey, 1738. Source: Bodleian Library,
Oxford, MS a3*, fo.32.

park designed by Charles Bridgeman and the prehistoric landscape, the latter both
embedded in the former, and surrounding it (Figure 1). The site is dominated by a
prehistoric earthwork, the heavily wooded univallate Iron Age hillfort known as
Vespasians Camp, enclosing 15 ha and rising to 91m at its highest point. Bridgemans

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design makes use of the south-eastern ramparts, and the remains of one of two Bronze
Age barrows on the summit of the hill-fort appears to be the focus of rising and
tapering grassy terraces. The prehistoric monuments are part of the Stonehenge World
Heritage Site, and the extent to which they were modified by eighteenth-century
landscaping is of considerable interest.
It is often assumed that prehistoric monuments such as Vespasians Camp have
such a large presence in a landscape that consciousness of them constructs meaning
in all subsequent historical periods. Richard Bradley, in Altering the Earth,
suggests: A monument may change its meaning from one period to another
without necessarily changing its form. It can be adapted, it can be left alone, but
unless it is actually destroyed, it is almost impossible to eradicate it from human
experience (Bradley 1993, 5). Mark Bowdens discussion of the reinterpretation of
the Iron Age oppida at Stanwick Park and Forcett Hall in North Yorkshire in the
eighteenth century develops this idea to consider what meaning might have been
constructed for the eighteenth-century designers and their patrons. He asks
whether the prehistoric earthworks were numinous to them, or merely
convenient?(Bowden 1998, 25). At Amesbury, Bridgemans design seems to have
been a conscious reinterpretation of the prehistoric landscape, informed by the
culture and practices of the eighteenth century.

Amesbury Abbey and Charles Bridgeman

For a large part of the eighteenth century, from 1725 to 1778, the estate of
Amesbury Abbey was the property of Charles Douglas, the 3rd Duke of
Queensberry and his wife Catherine. The Duke and Duchess were prominent in
the court of George I, and although they remained at Court following the accession
of George II in 1727, the Duke resigned his offices after the King banished his wife
from Court because of her outrage at the refusal of a licence for John Gays play
Polly, which satirised Sir Robert Walpole. In the 1730s they commissioned the
Royal Gardener Charles Bridgeman to produce a design for a new landscape
around the existing house at Amesbury, which had been designed by John Webb in
165961 (and was to be replaced in 1824) (Crowley 1995, 54).
Charles Bridgeman (born probably around 1690, died 1738) had previously
worked at Blenheim Palace since 1709, and on a number of other prestigious
landscapes including Hampton Court, Middlesex (171427), Claremont, Surrey
(17248), and Richmond Gardens, Surrey (172638). In Wiltshire, in addition to
Amesbury Abbey, the garden at Standlynch (Trafalgar House) is attributed to him
(Willis 2002, 435 and plate 225), and Mowl suggests that we might also consider
that he worked on the garden at The Moot, Downton (Mowl 2004, 73). He seems
to have been popular among the Whig elite, and appears to have worked both at
Houghton Hall (Norfolk) for Sir Robert Walpole and at Wolterton Hall (also
Norfolk) for his brother, Horatio Walpole.
Bridgeman seems to have been a particularly appropriate designer to re-interpret
prehistoric earthworks. His designs are characterised by a keen regard for the
genius loci of a site and by his predisposition for vastness of scale (Willis 1977,
130). It is possible that at Amesbury a sense of genius loci, whether as the

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SUE HAYNES

peculiar nature of a particular location (Poulson 1979, 201) or in the classical

Roman sense of a presiding deity, might have made him sensitive to the impressive,
and arguably other, prehistoric landscape both within the park at Amesbury, and
beyond it. Bridgemans work also bears some resemblance to monument-building
in prehistory, in that his schemes often required extensive earth moving to create
features with considerable visual and spatial impact: the Mountains that reach
God knows whither of Sir James Thornhills poem Hue and Cry of 1721. Nor is
Amesbury the only design of Bridgemans to incorporate an ancient earthwork.
The landscape at Lodge Park (Gloucestershire), designed by Bridgeman between
1725 and 1729, includes a Neolithic long barrow. Presumably because of its
topographical position to the north of the site, Bridgeman seems to have chosen
not to make it a focal point of any part of the design, which is aligned east-west. It
is however clearly visible on the skyline from many significant parts of
Bridgemans design, including both sides of the long east-west aligned avenue of
trees, recently partly by the National Trust. In fact, it seems possible that
Bridgeman enhanced the shape of the barrow and rearranged its capstone and
orthostats (Smith 2006, 246). The Moot at Downton, if it is indeed by Bridgeman,
also has an earthwork, this time Norman, at its heart (Mowl 2004, 73).

The construction of Bridgemans eighteenth-century landscape

Bridgemans design at Amesbury (Bodleian Library MSGD a3*fo.32) makes use of
the north-eastern quadrant of the hillfort (Figure 1). Cut into the cliff that forms
its eastern defence above the River Avon, is a grotto known as Gays Cave. This is
clearly shown on Bridgemans plan, surrounded by diamond-shaped earthworks,
which begin at the lip of the slope and end at the waters edge. The design also
seems to make use of one of the Bronze Age barrows as a focal point, and it
appears that Bridgeman intended there to be an octagonal summerhouse atop it. A
ride runs along the spine of the hillfort and along the fortifications above the river
to the south of Gays Cave. Close to the southern entrance of the hillfort, on the
ramparts, Bridgemans plan shows a bastion, which appears to have some sort of
structure, perhaps an obelisk, or pyramid, in it. Bridgemans design also suggests
that he intended Gays Cave, and the diamond that surrounds it, to be viewed from
a number of points in the garden east of the river. At either end of the straight
stretch of river closest to Vespasians Camp, two semi-circular bastion-like
structures seem designed to provide vistas towards the hillfort and Gays Cave.
Another viewpoint seems to have been provided by a semi-circular bastion that
protrudes from one of the corners of the kite-shaped kitchen garden. The house is
linked to the hillfort by a straight avenue that crosses the river.
Some, at least, of Bridgemans design survives to the west of the River Avon,
although its date of construction is not entirely clear. Today the paths on the
hillfort largely follow the pattern of walks in his design. The path running along
the scarp of the natural cliff above the River Avon is on Bridgemans plan
(Figure 2, H) and continues along the scarp leaving Gays Cave to the east and
running down the hill to the north-east, away from the ramparts (Figure 2, F).
Paths radiate from a large circular feature on the top of the hill, which is now

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CHARLES BRIDGEMAN AT AMESBURY ABBEY

figure 2 A map showing the features of Bridgemans design still visible. Key: A: unidentified
earthwork; B: edge of the square feature (shown on Bridgemans plan); C: ditch; D: apsidal
depression; E: Chinese summerhouse; F: path from ramparts (shown on Bridgemans plan);
G: Gays Cave and apron (shown on Bridgemans plan); H: the path from Stonehenge Road
(shown on Bridgemans plan); I: the diamond-shaped earthworks (shown on Bridgemans
plan); J: path descending to the south-west; K: circular feature (shown on Bridgemans plan);
L: ditch; M: rising geometric terraces (shown on Bridgemans plan); N: pit (corresponding to
bastion shown on Bridgemans plan); O: Bronze age round barrow.

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figure 3 Detail from Dury and Andrews map of Wiltshire showing the extent of Bridgemans
design in 1773. Source: http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/gallery/map/amesbury_map.73.002.
jpg

largely overgrown with trees (Figure 2, K). On its south-eastern circumference

there is a ditch extending for about 10 metres before it becomes incorporated into
the slope of the hill (Figure 2, L). The paths not discernible today are the diagonals
from this circular feature to the south-east and north-east, the wide vista to the
south, and the path descending from the square towards the west. These paths are,
however, shown, in a form less crisp than Bridgemans, by Dury and Andrews
(Figure 3). There is also a narrow path running along the face of the scarp from
Gays Cave south towards Stonehenge Road. Although recently constructed (pers.
comms. Mike Clarke), it is on the same alignment as that on Bridgemans plan and
may follow the trace of paths that appear, too, on Dury and Andrews map.
Gays Cave and the apron created in front of it are in good repair although the
cave is surrounded by dense foliage in summer (Figure 2, G). The diamond shape
created by the narrow terraces designed by Bridgeman to surround Gays Cave
(Figure 2, I) is discernible, but in places badly overgrown. However, the terraces
are much more clearly visible on a photograph in the catalogue for the sale of
Amesbury Abbey in 1915 (Wiltshire Records Office: WRO 283/168A) (Figure 4).
Above the cave is a triangular open space that tapers as it rises west to the summit
of the hillfort. A narrow path runs through the centre of this space, which is dense
with long grass and nettles in summer. Saplings of ash and sycamore are beginning
to colonise the south-eastern quadrant, but it is still clearly identifiable as
Bridgemans rising terraces; in winter, the straight edges of low banks are faintly
evident on both sides towards the southern edge of the space, although they are

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161

figure 4 Gays
Cave and the
Diamond in 1915.
Source: Wiltshire
and Swindon
History Centre,
Chippenham.

degraded and no longer right-angled (Figure 2, M). Dury and Andrews show that,
even by 1773, this space had become triangular. It seems likely that the rightangled borders to the terraces were not destroyed but filled in with planting,
perhaps with the box that now grows in the vicinity. A diary entry by Lady Sophia
Newdigate while on a tour of the area, probably in 1747, seems to record the
moment at which this happened: here is about 40 acres part of which is very well
disposd there is a high hill in ye Garden in a very stiff formal taste at present but
going to be altered (Warwickshire RO, CR 1841/7). In the north-eastern section
of the hillfort, in an area of pheasant rearing pens, the land becomes relatively flat.
On the eastern edge, a clear straight edge is visible, planted at some time in the past
with yew trees (Figure 2, B). Dury and Andrews depict a square feature in this area
planted with single trees. This seems to correspond with the square feature on
Bridgemans plan. Immediately to the east of the entrance from Stonehenge Road,
overgrown box surmounts a small semi-circular earthwork that partly encloses a
pit approximately one metre deep, now containing rubbish (Figure 2, N). This
seems to be in the same place as a bastion on Bridgemans plan, and is also shown
by Dury and Andrews.
A Chinese summerhouse, built of knapped flint and wood, which was restored
in 1986 (Crowley 2003, 57), is not depicted on Bridgemans plan. Shown on
Dury and Andrews in 1773, it had been built by 1747 when Lady Sophia
Newdigate commented on it pejoratively: They have lately built a Chinese house
of flint no very proper material for ye purpose this stands upon ye river wch is its
whole merit (Warws RO CR 1841/7.) It is not entirely clear whether its
construction occurred before Bridgemans death or in the nine-year interval
between his death in 1738 and 1747. Lady Sophia Newdigates use of the word
lately suggests the latter.
The only other feature of Vespasians Camp that does not appear on
Bridgemans design is a very substantial ditch, in places at least 2m deep,

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figure 5 Detail from Henry

Flitcrofts survey 1726
showing the strips within
Walls Field. Source:
Wiltshire and Swindon
History Centre,
Chippenham.

figure 6 Flitcrofts
survey of 1725
showing the extent
of the estate to the
east of the River
Avon. Source:
Wiltshire and
Swindon History
Centre,
Chippenham.

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163

running beside the path F (Figure 2, C). It is planted at regular intervals with
yew trees. It is of unclear origin but it seems likely this ditch was necessary for
the construction of the path, which, especially at its southern end, is cut into a
very steep slope. However, it is also possible that it is of more ancient origin
and pre-dates the eighteenth-century landscaping, which simply sharpened
and deepened it in excavating the walk. It may have marked the boundary
between the arable land of Half Borough Field and the meadow land to the
east (Figure 5). The line of the ditch continues as a boundary, eastwards
towards Countess Farm.
Although Bridgemans plan is dated 1738, it seems probable that he was
involved with the estate from around 1730, and the plan perhaps to some
degree depicts what he had already done, not only what was proposed.
Bridgeman was linked to the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry through
Henrietta Howard and John Gay (Willis 1977, 53). The evidence of letters
suggests that he was involved at Amesbury from 1730, when the Duchess and
Gay wrote to Henrietta Howard: We wonder we have heard nothing from Mr
Bridgeman, if you chance to see him, pray tell him so (Burgess 1966, 96). In
her reply two days later, Henrietta Howard reported that Bridgeman says that
the gardens are kept as they ought to be and at very reasonable expense; but
he will very soon bring [her] the account, and a positive agreement, if it be
such as the Duchess approves, which suggests that some work had taken place
(Willis 1977, 53). By 1737, it is clear from a letter in which the Duchess asks
Henrietta Howard to thank Lord Scarborough for beech-mast, that planting of
trees had begun. In it she describes herself as planting mad (Murray 1824,
volume 2, 160).
It is likely, however, that any construction undertaken before Bridgemans
death would have been confined to the eastern side of the river. Estate records
suggest emparkment to the west of the River Avon was a complicated and
piecemeal process, and only finally completed in 1742. In 1726 the architect
Henry Flitcroft carried out a survey of the Duke of Queensberrys newly
inherited estate, and this offers a comprehensive picture of the land owned by
the estate (WRO 944/1) (Figures 5 and 6). It shows that of the land over which
Bridgemans design would eventually be constructed, only the demesne lands
and the meadow land on the eastern bank of the River Avon Laundry Mead,
Upper Folds and Lower Folds were entirely in the possession of the estate.
The land within the ramparts of Vespasians Camp, known as Walls Fields,
was under open-field cultivation, and the survey shows that of twelve strips,
only five were owned by the estate (WRO 944/1, 944/2). A significant
proportion of the remaining seven strips, and some of the land surrounding the
hillfort, was part of the manor of Dawbeneys and Souths, owned by Sir Philip
Hayward. The remaining strips, and meadow land to the south-east of the
hillfort, was owned by a number of individuals. The process of acquiring all
this land appears to have taken from 1726, when Flitcrofts survey records the
Duke of Queensberrys intention to buy the manors of Dawbeneys and Souths
(WRO 944/2), to 1742 when the enclosure of the final strips within Walls Field
was completed (WRO 283/6/2).

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Eighteenth-century attitudes to the Stonehenge landscape

While the eighteenth century did not have an accurate chronological framework
within which to place the Stonehenge landscape, it was nevertheless interpreted
both in the popular imagination and by antiquarian scholarship. There was a
strong sense of its otherness, shown by the variety of myths linked to it. For
example, the barrow designated Amesbury 23, intervisible with Vespasians Camp,
was popularly known as Ambrosius Barrow (Burl and Mortimer 2005,104)
linking it with Ambrosius Aurelianus, a leader of resistance against Saxon settlers
in the later fifth century, after whom legend also had it that Amesbury had been
named (Crowley 2003, 16).
By the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, however, antiquarians were
attempting to create a historical framework within which to place the Stonehenge
landscape. There was some sense, particularly from William Stukeley, that Wessex
might have been inhabited before the Romans and, perhaps, even before the
Belgae, whose invasion of the British Isles, documented by Caesar, was the one
fixed point he could turn to before the Roman Conquest (Piggott 1985, 67).
Stukeley used the term celtic to identify these shadowy peoples (Piggott 1985, 67)
and in his Itinerarium Curiosum he identified the barrow within Vespasians Camp
as pre-Roman: tis high in the middle and has a barrow enclosd but partly level;
this I suppose originally celtic, on account of its vicinity to Stonehenge, therefore
elder than the camp (Stukeley 1724, 131).
Overwhelmingly, however, the context in which the Stonehenge landscape was
most often placed was Roman. Inigo Jones survey, published posthumously in
1655, also argued that Stonehenge was a Roman construction using Tuscan
proportions (Darvill 2007, 39). Gibsons 1722 translation of Camdens Britannia
(Vol.1, 97) considered the origins of Stonehenge in some detail. Of the
explanations suggested, three placed the building of the monument in the
Roman period. Stukeley attributed Vespasians Camp at Amesbury to the Romans,
either because of the name by which it was known, which Hogg suggests predates
Stukeleys involvement (WRO 283/6, cited in RCHME 1979), or because many
hill-top fortifications, the work of the late Bronze Age or Iron Age, were
misidentified as Roman in the eighteenth century (Piggott 1985, 66). In
unpublished notes Stukeley expanded on the link between the Roman Emperor
Vespasian and the hillfort: Said with probability to be that of the victoryus
Vespasian upon his first landing in Britain, where by his fortunate conduct he pavd
for himself a way to the Imperial Dignity (Burl and Mortimer 2005, 27).
Stonehenge Road appears on his 1723 drawing as via praetoria (Bodleian Library
Gough Maps 229/43).
It also seems likely that Bridgeman, and the Duke and Duchess of
Queensberry, would have been aware of these conceptual frameworks.
Camdens Britannia in its 1722 revision by Gibson, was well known, and
Stukeleys Itinerarium Curiosum was published in 1724. Stukeleys writing is
likely to have been influential. It is possible that Bridgeman knew through
Flitcroft of Stukeley, and of his work on the Stonehenge landscape undertaken in
171923. It seems, from an undated letter that, on at least one occasion, Flitcroft
had intended to accompany Stukeley to Stonehenge: Sir, I am very sorry that I

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CHARLES BRIDGEMAN AT AMESBURY ABBEY

165

can not enjoy the happiness of your good Company before Friday afternoon at
whch time I hoped to have your good Company to Ambresbury (Bodleian
Library Gough. Gen.139). Bridgeman and Flitcroft both worked at Amesbury
Abbey, and collaborated on other houses and landscapes including Bower House
(Willis 1977, 51). Stukeley was also associated with aristocrats with connections
to the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. For example Lord Pembroke is
mentioned in the correspondence of the Duchess of Queensberry (Murray 1824,
Vol.2 1824, 98). A further connection between Stukeley and the Duke of
Queensberry emerges through the Society of Roman Knights, an antiquarian
society whose members took names from Romano-British notables (Piggott
1985, 53) and of which Stukeley was a founder member. Alexander Gordon,
author of Itinerarium Septentrionale, published in 1726, was a fellow member
whose principal patron was the Duke of Queensberry (Ayres 1997, 99). It is,
therefore, reasonable to assume, although without documentary evidence, that
Bridgeman and his patrons were aware of the current antiquarian scholarship
about the Stonehenge landscape.

The discourse of Ancient Rome

But, in spite of the wealth of antiquarian scholarship clearly available,
Bridgemans, and his clients, perception of their prehistoric site may, in fact,
have been far more influenced by the pervasive political and cultural discourse,
which referenced ancient Rome. After the Glorious Revolution, the landed
English oligarchy appropriated the ideals of republican Rome to legitimise its rule,
as the classically spirited guarantor of the liberties it had won for all in its fight
against Stuart absolutism (Ayres 1997, 3). These ideals were, to a considerable
degree, the preserve of the Whig oligarchy, and [r]adical Whig theorists had
insisted that the model for English society should be Republican Rome
(Williamson 1998, 63). The Duke and Duchess of Queensberry presumably had
Whig sympathies since they were prominent in the court of George I, although
their support for John Gay, and their subsequent withdrawal from court, also
suggests a degree of opposition to Walpole. Worsley suggests that an education
founded on the classics and classical remains studied on the Grand Tour, also
created an empathy with Rome (Worsley 1995, 151). The Duke of Queensberry
had returned from his Grand Tour in 1719.
Architecturally, this discourse was expressed through Palladian architecture
although, as Williamson has suggested of necessity mediated through Renaissance
Italy (Williamson 1998, 63). In the landscapes around these Palladian houses, the
Whig oligarchy employed garden architecture and garden sculpture to reinforce its
self-image as the guarantor of the nations newly won liberties (Ayres 1997, 75).
Inspiration for gardens was found in Robert Castells influential book The Villas of
the Ancients Illustrated (1728). This conscious evocation of ancient Rome is clear
even in the lexical field employed by many writers on gardening. Stephen Switzer,
in Ichnographica Rustica (1718; rev.1742), and Batty Langley, in New Principles
of Gardening 1728, works otherwise dedicated to good husbandry, suggest a
variety of Roman gods and goddesses as suitable statuary.

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Gays Cave
It is in the design of Gays Cave that the influence of this pervasive preoccupation
with ancient Rome comes into sharpest focus. Gays Cave is attributed to Flitcroft
(presumably because the design of the new blocks added to the house in the late
1740s and early 1750s has been attributed to him) or to William Chambers
(Crowley 1995, 55). However, in the design of its pedimented centre, and in its
site, it strongly resembles William Kents design for The Hermitage in Richmond
Park (Figures 7 and 8). It is even possible that Kent had some influence over the
design of Gays Cave, given that Flitcroft supervised work on The Hermitage,
in 1730, in his capacity as the Clerk of Works at Richmond. John Cloakes
description of The Hermitage in Palaces and Parks of Richmond and Kew suggests
that there is a close correlation between the two structures (Cloake 1996, 38).
They were sited in similar locations, Gays Cave cut into chalk in a cliff above the
River Avon, and The Hermitage cut into an artificial mound so that, as Cloake
records, the building appeared to be built into the side of a hill. Both are faced
with roughly cut stone, their pediments appearing to be partly overgrown. Both
have an arch with prominent springers, voussoirs and keystone, leading to an
interior with a vaulted ceiling and dressed stone niches. In the Hermitage the
niches are filled with busts of famous scholars, but in Gays Cave they are empty,
although it is tempting to speculate, although without any evidence beyond the
name of the feature, that it was the intention to fill them with memorials to John
Gay, following his death in 1732. It is clear from a letter written by the Duchess of
Queensberry to the Countess of Suffolk in 1734 that she felt his death keenly: I
often want poor Mr Gay, and on this occasion extremely.his loss was really
great, but it is a satisfaction to have known so good a man (Murray 1824, Vol.2,
109). However, it seems improbable that, as local rumour has it, John Gay wrote
the Beggars Opera in it.
Light may be thrown on the intention behind the design of Gays Cave by Kents
representation of The Hermitage as a Roman pastoral idyll in a drawing of the
Hermitage embellished with a drawing of a satyr kissing the hand of a female
figure, and the word Arcadia inscribed in red ink (www.soane.org.uk/drawings)
(Figure 7). If this representation throws light on the intention behind the design of
the Hermitage, it may also help our interpretation of Gays Cave. Perhaps the
design of Gays Cave was intended to be a general echo of classical times, rather
than a more specific reflection of Stukeleys perception of the hillfort as Roman,
but if so, it created a curious mixture: a quasi-Roman grotto modifying a perceived
Roman (but in fact Iron Age) rampart, evoking a notion of ancient Rome entirely
mediated through an eighteenth-century aesthetic.

The re-use of the Iron Age ramparts and the Bronze Age barrows
Apart from the construction of Gays Cave, there is little other evidence that
Bridgeman and his patrons placed any value on their prehistoric monuments.
Although Gays Cave may be a nod to the perceived Roman origins of its site it,
and the diamond of earthworks that surrounds it, represents a radical modification
of the defences of the hillfort. Considerable earthmoving would have been required

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CHARLES BRIDGEMAN AT AMESBURY ABBEY

figure 7 William Kents drawing of The Hermitage

in Richmond Park with a satyr kissing the hand of a
female figure. (Image used by courtesy of the
Trustees of Sir John Soane9s Museum.)

167

figure 8 Gays Cave December 2010.

Source: S. Haynes.

figure 9 Flitcrofts Survey of 1725 superimposed on with 1976 Ordnance Survey map
showing the location of open field strips within the ramparts of Walls Fields. Source:
www.edina.ac.uk and Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham. Georeferencing:
S.Haynes.

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to create the large apron in front of the cave and the cave itself, so that Colt
Hoares description, It was surrounded by a single vallum which has been much
mutilated on the east side in forming the pleasure grounds of Amesbury Abbey,
seems accurate (Colt Hoare 1810, 160). It is not clear whether Colt Hoare was
recording the actual destruction of the ramparts on the east of the hillfort, or
whether he is assuming they were present and are now destroyed. Whichever, it is
clear that the preservation of the earthworks in their original state was not a
priority. This treatment of prehistoric earthworks is echoed in the treatment of the
smaller of the two barrows, Amesbury G25 (Figure 2, O), depicted in Stukeleys
drawings, and described by both Stukeley and Colt Hoare. It is now bisected by
the drive, which runs along the spine of the hillfort, possibly because its position
made it impossible to avoid, and is partly destroyed. Since Stukeley identified it as
celtic it is likely that Bridgeman and his patrons had some sense of its origins, and
therefore its destruction seems to have been a deliberate act, which does not
suggest veneration for prehistory. It is, however, possible that its destruction
occurred later, in the 1770 landscaping.
The picture is further complicated by the identification of the circular feature
close to the summit of the hillfort as a Bronze Age barrow, identified as Amesbury
G24. It has been suggested, in discussions of Bridgemans design for Amesbury
Abbey, that he incorporated this barrow into his design (Willis 1977, 54; Smith
2006, 246). If Bridgeman had deliberately designed a landscape with this as its
focus, it might offer a significantly different perspective on his and his patrons
attitude to prehistoric remains. There are, however, some problems with this
viewpoint. The first is that Flitcrofts survey shows that the land within the
ramparts of the hillfort was under open field cultivation in 1726, and this remained
the case until 1742. It is doubtful whether a barrow would have survived openfield cultivation (WRO 944/1). Whyte has shown that barrows in open fields were
used as boundary markers (Whyte 2003, 6), but neither of the barrows under
discussion here stands on a significant boundary. In fact, the larger barrow appears
to straddle two strips and covers almost half of one, making it difficult to imagine
that cultivation of that strip would have been possible had the barrow existed as a
raised mound (Figure 9).
Secondly, antiquarian writing identifies only one barrow within the ramparts of
Vespasians Camp. Stukeleys description of Vespasians Camp in his Itinerarium
Curiosum records one barrow enclosd, but partly level (Stukeley 1724, 131) and
his map of the environs of Stonehenge shows only one (Bodleian Library Gough
Maps 229/9, 229/13, 229/14). Colt Hoare, describing the interior of the hillfort,
also notes on the highest ground, is the appearance of a band barrow, but much
disfigured in its form (Colt Hoare 1810, 160). It seems likely that this refers to
Amesbury G25, which might still be described in the same way today. The
suggestion that there were two barrows within the ramparts comes merely from
the manuscript annotation found in the lesser of two barrows in that part of Old
Ambresbury called Vespasians Camp on a drawing of bronzes that O.G.S.
Crawford discovered bound into Richard Goughs own copy of Horsleys Brit.
Romana, (Goddard 1913, 115). It is interesting that only after 1913 is the large
circular feature on the hillfort identified as Tumulus on Ordnance Survey maps.

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There is, then, considerably more likelihood that the circular feature, rather than
being the site of Amesbury G24, is in fact the remains of Bridgemans circular
cabinet, a suggestion supported by the RCHME (RHCME 1979, 22). It is still
possible that the ditch on the outer perimeter of the south-eastern quadrant is the
ring ditch of a very large barrow, but it is most unlikely that such a ditch would
have survived open field cultivation. It is, therefore, either a tree planting ring or,
more likely, a ditch defining the outside edge of a circular lawn, with trees planted
beyond it, as shown in Bridgemans design (pers. comm. Mark Bowden).

The influence of the wider Stonehenge landscape

Although it appears that the earthworks within the boundaries of the landscape
park were not a particular inspiration to Bridgeman and his patrons, it is still
possible that the wider Stonehenge landscape, significant elements of which are
intervisible with Vespasians Camp, might have inspired the design. Bridgemans
design clearly suggests a number of lines of sight, defined by avenues of trees and
vistas, and a number of important and iconic barrows are intervisible with the
summit of Vespasians Camp, most notably Amesbury G23, on Coneybury Hill,
and all seven of the New King Barrows on Kings Barrow Ridge. It is tempting to
imagine that Bridgemans design deliberately reflected the proximity of the
prehistoric landscape around it, and that the Bronze Age and Neolithic
monuments were used as eyecatchers, as was Kents ruined mill at Rousham
(Jacques 1983, 37). Viewshed analysis does not support this, and none of the
striking barrows are the focus of the sight lines from the summit of Vespasians
Camp; indeed, it seems that Bridgeman did not intend any vista to the west from
the circular feature since there is no gap in the trees that encircle its western side.

Alternative readings of Bridgemans reinterpretation

It thus seems unlikely that Bridgemans design reflects sensitivity to the prehistoric
landscape either as other or as containing recognisable prehistoric monuments.
Yet his plan is a reinterpretation of disparate parts of a relict landscape as a
coherent whole, and it is likely it was the intention of either him or the Duke of
Queensberry to link these separate parcels of land. There are, however, possible
alternatives to the idea that Bridgemans reinterpretation was entirely informed by
the genius loci as prehistoric.
One of these is concerned with, in Popes words, the fashion for conceal[ing] the
bounds (Rogers 2008, 69). There was a new desire in the mid eighteenth century
for a distinct aura of exclusivity and social segregation (Williamson 1995, 57). In
order to achieve this, the creation of landscape parks often involved the removal of
a few farms and cottages or, where the house was close to one side of the park,
the extension of the park on that side (Williamson 1998, 174). Seclusion might
also have been achieved by the creation of perimeter belts of trees. At Houghton,
for example, Bridgemans design increased the exclusion of the house by the
creation of block planting of trees on the perimeter of the park. Flitcrofts survey
shows that, when the Duke of Queensberry inherited Amesbury Abbey, it was not

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SUE HAYNES

secluded. To the south and east the park was closely bounded by the Abbey
precinct wall 220 metres from the house, and immediately behind it were the
gardens of the houses in the High Street (Figure 6) (WRO 944/1). Also to the south
of the house, gates from a semi-circular forecourt led into a double avenue of trees
which ran south to St Mary and St Melors church, terminating in an apsidal hedge
in front of the north transept. To the north, the rear elevation of the Mansion
House was clearly visible from the road, as Stukeleys drawing shows (Bodleian
Library Gough Maps 229/200). To the west, the view in 1726 was of the ramparts
of Vespasians Camp under open-field cultivation, not all the strips there being
owned by the estate (WRO 944/1). Seclusion here would have required much more
than the removal of a few farms and cottages.
Bridgemans design seems to deal with all these problems of seclusion. It is clear
that the axial avenue depicted by Flitcroft did indeed exist. It appears on Dury and
Andrews map of 1773 as a double row of trees, and is recorded by the Reverend
Arthur Phelps in 1870 (WRO 1552/1/2/13). Today it survives as a shallow
depression in the land visible in winter (Figure 10). However, it appears that rather
than uproot the trees in this avenue, Bridgeman instead obscured the church with,
in places, four rows of trees. Today, the thick belt of trees between Amesbury
Abbey and the church makes an effective visual barrier. To the west, because
Bridgemans design emparks Vespasians Camp, which rises above the flat meadow
land by the river, it very effectively conceals the boundary to the west, as well as

figure 10 The shallow depression marking the course of the double avenue of trees to the
church. Source: S. Haynes.

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CHARLES BRIDGEMAN AT AMESBURY ABBEY

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removing all signs of cultivation from the view from the garden. It seems possible
that for the Duke of Queensberry the design of the garden, and the acquisition of
the land on which to build it, was about concealing as much of his boundaries as
possible. Indeed, he had signalled that he intended to buy and keep in hand the
land immediately to the west of the River Avon (WRO 944/2).
An alternative is that, for Bridgeman, the genius loci at Amesbury Abbey was
located not in prehistory, but in the topography of the juxtaposition between the
hillfort and the River Avon beneath it. Although Willis concludes that
Bridgemans layout at Amesbury Abbey is fragmented and lacks a dominant,
cohesive idea (Willis 1977, 54), I would suggest that the axiality and the cohesion
are dependent on the site of Gays Cave. This was dug into the east-facing cliff
above the River Avon, the most dramatic of the topographic incidents, where the
Avon is closest to the ramparts. Bridgemans design places Gays Cave
equidistantly between the two ends of the straight stretch of the River Avon.
The 1st Edition OS map (1878) shows this clearly, although today the course of
the Avon is slightly altered. Practically, from the house, this is also the only place
on the east bank of the river where it is possible to get close to both the river and
the hillfort. It is, both pragmatically and topographically, the best place to site
Gays Cave. Bridgemans axis for the garden stretches from Gays Cave east across
the garden, through the bastion on the corner of the kitchen garden, to the focal
point on the precinct wall, and west upwards to the circular platform on the top of
the hillfort. Both the viewshed analysis and the planting of trees on the western
perimeter of the circular feature suggest that he did not intend a western extension
of this axis. This, also, coincidentally, makes it even less likely that the circular
feature was on the site of a barrow, unless by some happy coincidence a barrow
happened to be sited on exactly the right axial trajectory.

Conclusion
This article began by asking whether a prehistoric monument had such presence
in a landscape that a consciousness of it influenced how that landscape was
reinterpreted. At Amesbury Abbey there is some evidence that for Bridgeman and
his patrons the perceived Roman origins of the Iron Age hillfort informed the
building of Gays Cave. The evidence also suggests that any meaning the
prehistoric earthworks had for Bridgeman and his patrons bore only a tangential
relation to the antiquarian scholarship of the period, and was much more driven
by an eighteenth-century conception of ancient Rome. The answer to Mark
Bowdens question posed at the beginning of the article about whether prehistoric
earthworks were numinous or merely convenient to eighteenth-century
designers and their patrons seems, at Amesbury Abbey, to be that they were, to
a large degree, convenient.
When trying to evaluate the impact of a prehistoric earthwork in the eighteenth
century, we perhaps need to consider how our reading of material culture
produced in another century is influenced by twentieth- and twenty-first-century
perceptions of the past. There is a modern fascination with the common humanity
we share with our prehistoric ancestors, evident in the work of, among others,

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SUE HAYNES

Pryor and Tilley. The landscape at Amesbury Abbey suggests that, in the
eighteenth century, this was not the case. The reinterpretation of the prehistoric
earthworks here seems to have been driven by a combination of a number of
purely practical considerations with, crucially, a reading of the past that was
peculiar to early eighteenth-century England.

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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Tom Williamson, Dr Sarah Spooner and Dr Jon
Gregory for all the help and encouragement they gave me in the preparation of this
article. My thanks also go to Sir Edward and Lady Antrobus for allowing me
access to Vespasians Camp, and to the Cornelius-Reid family, and in particular, to
David Cornelius-Reid, for allowing me such freedom in surveying Amesbury
Abbey and its grounds. I would also like to thank David Jacques for introducing
me to Vespasians Camp in the first place, and for his help with this project. My
final thanks go to Gilly Clarke and, in particular, to Mike Clarke. Mikes deep
knowledge of the site, so generously imparted, was invaluable.

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Notes on contributor
Sue Haynes is a research student at the University of East Anglia. She has an MA in
Landscape History and her current area of study is the landscapes of Charles
Bridgeman. She is also a part-time English teacher at a sixth form college in
Norfolk. Contact: suehaynes55@aol.com