The Garden in Gothic Revival

Gothic Revival, an architectural movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, began with temples and porticos in English landscape gardens. These gardens were often used as laboratories for architectural innovation, since the expense involved in constructing small structures in the garden was far less than that required to construct an entire house. Indeed, many of these structures were made of impermanent materials, so few have survived to this day. These ornamental buildings were used to add interest to a view and to allow a patron to “try out” the architectural style to see if he liked it. Soon after these gothic temples and porticos and faux medieval ruins appeared in gardens, country houses in the Gothic Revival style began to appear.

Gothic Temple, Gothic Portico, Octangular Umbrello, and Gothic Temple from Batty Langley’s Ancient Architecture.

One of the most influential men in the design of these Gothic garden structures was Batty Langley, who published a book entitled Ancient Architecture Restored and Improved in 1741-2. The book was designed to instruct builders and craftsman in the Gothic style, not only for construction of new structures, but also in the restoration of medieval structures. Langley, a gardener’s son, was a landscape gardener and designer. Unfortunately, he showed distinct preferences for only certain aspects of Gothic style, and tended to blend classical and Gothic elements. Nonetheless, his use of ogee arches, pinnacles, and battlements became a standard of the early Gothic Revival movement.

Later Revivalists, especially Horace Walpole (he who invented the genre of literature known as Gothic Romance) held Langley’s garden structures in contempt. As Walpole remarked, “the Goths never built summer houses or temples in a garden.”