Gardens Essay: Presence of Stowe garden style in Pioneer Square

Claudia Pedraza Len

Art History: Baroque to Romanticism
February 8th, 2017
Beyond the fact that they are beautiful spaces, gardens can convey a deeper meaning. The

aesthetic part is the most attractive but also political, historical, and philosophical ideas can

be addressed within this open spaces. The eighteen century was a prolific era for garden

development in Europe. Countries such as England, France and Netherlands developed

different styles. They were also influenced by oriental ideas, where the oldest gardens

traditions can be found. Nowadays gardens continue being important areas.

According to Tim Richardson, in the early eighteenth century, landscape gardening was at

the cutting edge of design, a challenging discipline that occupied the minds of the most avant-

garde taste formers of the age. The garden was a realm in which the aesthetic theories,

philosophical ideas, poetic trends and even political ideologies could be illustrated to

dramatic and innovative effect. 1 Nowadays some of this ideas are still alive, and present in

the gardens that surround us.

Garden design went through different phases between 1680 y 1760. The first phase was

among 1680 and 1730 the most significant characteristic was their formal qualities produced

by linear and geometric planting designs, this was called Late Geometric style. Geometry

in the gardens was displayed by straight lines of trees (often clipped into formal shapes)

topiary (clipped shrubs) and flower beds, geometric outlines to block painting or enclosed

spaces, and elaborate patterns within planting areas. 2 The second phase of garden design,

1730-1750, characterized by modern scholars as the symbolic garden, on account of the

presence of iconographic programmes in many cases. From the 1730s, wealthy landowners

1 Barker E. 142
2 Barker E. 148
were redesigning their gardens to incorporate buildings and statuary in varied settings,

intended to be revealed as the visitor walked around the grounds.3

Nowadays, there are remarkable similarities and differences on the way gardens are

conceived in North America. A comparison will be made between the Pioneer Square and

the Stowe garden in terms of: public and private spaces, size of the space used for the gardens,

style and presence of temples and pavilions.

One of the most meaningful parks in Victoria is the Pioneer Square. The Pioneer Square is

a small, rectangular park adjacent to Christ Church Cathedral. Also known as the old

burying ground it served as the Citys cemetery from 1855 to 1873. It has been a City park

since 1908. 4 This park is adjacent to the Christ Church Cathedral. This cathedral is the first

in the city, holding a Gothic style.

Stowe had 20 different areas that included: gardens, a house, lakes and rivers, monuments,

multiple temples, a cave, among other things. This property was originally owned by the

Temple family, who began to develop the gardens in 1683. It went through several

renovations and transformations, being one me the most important the one suffered in 1720,

which defined the symbolic garden style that characterizes it.

In the 21st century, the amount of territory that a single family can own has drastically

changed. Nowadays private owners of big territories, like the Temple family, are uncommon.

One of the reasons for this change is that the preservation of big spaces is very expensive.

Stowe, for example, is no owned by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest, which

is a charity organization advocated to preserve the nations heritage and open space. Many

3 Barker E. 142
4 City of Victoria. 2
of our properties are unable to fund their own preservation. The cost of caring for them is

high We rely on the support of our members, donor and volunteers to look after the

places in their care.5 Properties with Stowe magnitudes are usually owned and preserved

by the government or big by organizations. The Christ Church Cathedral is part of the

Anglican Communion of Canada, while Pioneer Square is a government territory. That also

make them more likely to be public spaces.

The fact that huge territories, like gardens are nowadays public spaces, has a beneficial part

for the community. People is able to make use of this spaces with more liberty. Parks are

commonly associated with recreational and relaxing purposes. Pioneer Square provides a

respite from downtowns concrete jungle and is often used by area office workers as a lunch

spot during the warmer months or by those just seeking a place to sit in the grass and rest or

read. Significant mature trees grace the site to provide welcome shade on a hot summer day6.

Stowe was a private property and Temple family had controlled access Stowe was so

popular with paying visitors that it had its own guidebook and inn for tourists Whately

praised its scenes, each distinguished with taste and fancy.7 There is a big contrast between

the use of this two gardens: free use and relaxation, against controlled entrance and

admiration of the scenes.

Stowe design was part of the design style change, from 1730, where wealthy landowners

were redesigning their gardens to incorporate buildings and statuary in varied settings,

intended to be revealed as the visitor walked around the grounds. Among all the buildings

and statuaries that were constructed on Stowe, two of them are important for this paper, the

5 National Trust
6 City of Victoria. 4
7 Barker E. 164
temple of British Worthies and the Gothic Temple. These buildings can be contrasted with

the Pioneer Square and the Christ Church Cathedra.

Stowe had an area named The Temple of British Worthies. It has niches for sixteen busts

and inscriptions, plus the figure of Mercury, who guides heroes to the underworld.8 The

busts were divided in the Temple of Fame and the Temple of the Ancient Virtue. The position

of exedra made that the busts from one side faced the other side. The characters selected for

this space were politically influential figures from the past that justly and poetically

expressed the character of that era.

The Pioneer Square is home to several significant military memorials, providing strong

symbolic and memorial value to the military associations that erected them. The various

markers and monuments offer an opportunity to reflect and remember those events that have

shaped us. The east grouping of stones and other monuments and bench tombs located

throughout the site offer a glimpse of the history of the site, and indeed, of the Citys

beginnings. Here are the some of the first pioneers that arrived and built the city Victoria

are buried.

Both spaces are referencing important historical figures. They are an homage to the relevant

figures. This homage is expressed on different ways, but the essential idea is the same: to pay

tribute to characters that have been relevant to the construction of a whole era.

The presence of a Gothic inspired church is also one of the similarities between Stowe

gardens and the Pioneer Square. Historical references are dominated by the use of Gothic

style for the large triangular building on Hawkwell Hill, the Gothic Temple dedicated to the

8 Barker E. 169
liberties of our ancestors. .9 While at the Pioneer Square, The Christ Church Cathedral has

also Gothic elements. In both churches we can find similar elements like: towers by the sides,

pointed arch and glass panels. Christ Church Cathedral has more elements that make it a

more formal Gothic style, such as a rose window, archivolts, a tympanum and pinnacles. This

might be related with the fact that one is a Cathedral and the other is a temple, which make

it a smaller construction.

Pioneer square garden has an irregular arrangement of the trees. Some lines of trees can be

identified, but its not a rigid structure. So as some specific areas with flowers arrangements.

The graveyards, monuments and obelisks are scattered around the whole area, without an

evident arrangement. This is similar to Stowe 1930s design Garden maker who wanted to

modernise sought to achieve greater variety and to place their varied set pieces (seats,

cascades, temples and so on) within more irregular plans. Flower and flowering shrubs were

not abandoned, but were presented in less rigid arrangements.

Gardening ideas originated in the eighteen century are still alive in the Pioneer Square. The

combination of a garden with structures like a church, the design style of the symbolic garden

and the use of the garden space to give tribute o historical figures. Other have changed such

as the territory used for gardens and the use given to them.

9 Barker E. a 171
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10 https://adventuresofdandgj.wordpress.com/tag/snowfall/
Bibliography
- Barker, Emma. Art and Visual Culture 1600-1850: Academy to Avant-Garde. London:
Tate Press, 2013
- City of Victoria. Pioneer Square Managment Plan. 2013. Retrieved from:
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