GoKawiilIt is arguable that, for all our other achievements in the sphere of gardening, the most important and iconic contribution of British horticulture to the world is the lawn. Lawns possess obvious appeal as an element in landscape design. Of all soft landscaping features, they are by far the most tolerant of wear. This means they can bridge the huge chasm in practicality between the severe utility of hard landscaping and the majority of soft landscaping that is designed to be looked at, rather than as a space to be inhabited.
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Lawns provide a strong visual link to the pastoral English landscape, which may be visible beyond our boundary, but if not will certainly hold a deeply entrenched position within our mind’s eye. They are pleasant to look at and to lounge on and provide an excellent setting for other landscape features.
"The Climax Mower. The most complete and perfect mower in the world." by Sarony, Major & Knapp - © Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Lawn care in itself has achieved cult status as an activity. The act of pushing a mower around possesses an almost primordial appeal. Our interaction with and manipulation of ‘nature’ is a defining characteristic of humanity. Nature’s response is invariably to mount a sustained attempt towards unruliness and reversion. Mowing the lawn is an immediate paradigm of our relationship with nature and it is to be expected that as a recently industrialised society we should cling to such activities as a vestige of our agricultural past. Lawn maintenance is an accessible activity, as it does not require specialised plant knowledge. In practical terms it occupies a gap between ‘gardening’ proper and the built environment – a world of straight lines, sharp edges, levels, of hard and fast rules. But a forgiving and soft world nonetheless.
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The eighteenth-century origin of the lawn
Lawns were established as an indispensable element of garden design during the 18th century. Eighteenth-century landscape designers stylised English pastoral scenery – by far the most prominent surface treatment in their idiom was cropped grass. Beyond the ha-ha, sheep cattle or deer may have maintained the sward. But next to the house, it was required that men with scythes regularly trim the herbage, an extremely labour intensive and skilled task. The aesthetic demanded as smooth a surface as possible. When you consider that grass was predominantly a resource for feeding livestock, the notion of constantly employing men to remove it can be considered an outrageous act of ostentation. The modern history of the lawn can be said to really get going once lawn-mowing technology was developed and adopted during the 19th century. But it is important to remember that the earliest lawns were very much the preserve of the elite. Lawns have held a powerful aspirational appeal ever since.
Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, circa 2015. A country house originally designed by Robert Adam and begun in 1767. It was later remodelled by Robert Smirke in circa 1830. The surrounding park was laid out by Capability Brown. - © Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images
The earliest lawns were very much the preserve of the elite
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