A Great Ornament
Virginia Water 1st January 1746

Only six months earlier he had finally crushed the Jacobite Rebellion by defeating the ‘Young Pretender’, Bonnie Prince Charlie, at Culloden Moor, near Nairn. The slaughter which followed the battle earned Cumberland the name of ‘the Butcher’. History likes to paint portraits in blacks and whites. Perhaps Cumberland was no more the brutal villain than Prince Charles was the romantic hero of tradition. Certainly Cumberland welcomed the life of a country gentleman, when his military duties allowed him the opportunity.

Twice before his death in 1765 his activities as Ranger were interrupted by war. The War of the Austrian Succession, in which Britain was the ally of Austria against France, was still dragging on and William became Commander-in-chief in the Low Countries in 1747. It was not until the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in the following year that he was able to return to Windsor and devote himself to the extensive landscaping of the Park associated with his name.

One of the Duke’s admirers was Joseph Pote, the Eton bookseller and publisher, whose commercial activities attracted the couplet:

‘Jos Pote, a man of great renown,

Buys a book for sixpence, and sells it for a crown’.

More important, he was a local historian who most unusually devoted attention to the Town and the Park as well as the Castle. In his History and Antiquities of Windsor Castle, published in 1749, he recorded the appointment of the Duke of Cumberland as Ranger and paid tribute to ‘the great and noble improvements now making by his Royal Highness to this Lodge and Gardens’.’ But he does not mention Virginia Water. This reflects the concentration of the earlier works around the Great Lodge itself. Six years later Pote’s Deuces de Windsore was dedicated to the Duke and described the formation of Virginia Water in glowing terms. ‘The noble Piece of Water in the Valley’, he wrote, ‘was effected at a large expense, and from a small Stream or Current of Water is now made a spacious River capable to carry Barges, and Boats of Pleasure with freedom.. . This Piece of Water is a great Ornament to the Park, and terminates in a Grotto, and large Cascade or Fall of Water, and whilst the Beauties of Nature are thus happily assisted by Art, what may not be expected in a few Years from such noble and extensive Designs, under the Guidance of a munificent and Royal Intendant’. Having scaled the heights of prose he now broke into verse:

‘Here blest with Health, with Glory blest,

From military Labour rest — Till Britain calls — Then leave these Plains

For Victory, and new Campaigns;

Then Public Liberty compleat,

Rebellion quash, and Tyranny defeat’.

These hopes were not realised. The outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756 led to a resumption of Cumberland’s military career. This time, however, the forces under his command were defeated and Cumberland found himself as unpopular as before he had been popular. In disgust he threw up his military appointments and retired to the Great Park once more. His last years were clouded by increasing ailments — a paralytic stroke in 1760, partial blindness, asthma, obesity. When he died in 1765 he was still only 44.

Nonetheless by this time Cumberland had created the first Virginia Water and landscaped the southern part of the Great Park so that, over two hundred years later, it still bears the impress of his initiative and enterprise. Neither George I nor George II had shown much interest either in Windsor or in Windsor Great Park. So Cumberland was free to do pretty much as he pleased. This was the time when, all over England, parks were being re-designed according to the new fashion, with lakes, cascades, landscaped slopes, scenic bridges and temples. The Duke was intimate with several of the aristocratic ‘improvers’, notably perhaps the fourth Duke of Devonshire, whose Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire was re-modelled.

The most famous of the new landscape gardeners, Capability Brown, does not appear to have been brought in at Windsor. William Kent, one of his predecessors, had done work at Windsor itself in the 1730s, but his work had not extended to the Park and in any case he died in 1748. One of his pupils, however, Henry Flitcroft, as we have seen, did do work for the Duke of Cumberland. He was paid ?1,900 on account for work in Windsor Great Park, and his close association with the Duke is illustrated by the dedication to him of a volume of his architectural drawings and designs.

The Cumberland Papers in the Royal Archives at Windsor include a number of lists of trees and flowering shrubs, which show just how much planning and effort went into the planting up of the Park. The first of these records, contained in a small neatly-written notebook, lists 138 flowering shrubs, beginning with Bastard Indigo; the main list is followed by sections on Roses (38 species), Honeysuckles (11 species), Elders (4 species) and Thorns (23 species). Next comes a list of trees, with over 200 entries, beginning with Triple Thorn’d Acacia, Pseudoacacia and Arbor Vitae and proceeding through the whole gamut of the alphabet to Weeping Willows. There is evidence of much correspondence with the Governors and other important persons in the American colonies - Mr Glynne, Governor of South Carolina; Col Francis Willis of Gloucester County in the colony of Virginia; Capt Rutherford and Lewis Morris Esq of New York; Mr Richard Salter of New Jersey; Eliakin Hutchinson, Peter Charndon and Dr William Clarke of Boston; Governor Hamilton, Richard Peters and Mr Bartram of Pennsylvania; Mr Bull and Mr Pinchney, two of His Majesty’s Council at Charlestown in South Carolina. The wealth of the flora of the eastern seaboard of what was soon to become the United States is reflected in the lists. A random selection does scant justice to the variety: Broad-leaved Magnolia, ‘Ginsery or Ninsain of the Chinese’, Philadelphus fore alba, Catalpa Tree, Candleberry Myrtle, Blue-berried Bay, Tulip Tree, White- flowered Azalea, Pyrola, Mezerioti, Cytisus, Arbor Jude, Cistus Landifera, Chinquefin Chestnuts as well as a wide range of Oaks, Planes, Hornbeams, Maples, Poplars and many other trees.

There is correspondence about the receipt of seeds from South Carolina at Portsmouth, to be sent to the Bailiff at the Lodge in Windsor Great Park. In 1759 there are records of ‘experiments upon cuttings of Different Sorts’. Forest seeds, all carefully labelled, were still being sent in 1760 by Gen Amherst who, before he went to North America, had beerion the Duke’s staff on the continent. One list is of seeds brought from the West Indies. Many of the items are described, so that the list

reads very much like a nurseryman’s catalogue. ‘Barbardoes Bachelor Buttons’ is ‘a little Tree that bears a Red flower like a Button’. The ‘Christmas Bush’ is ‘a little Tree about the size of a Gooseberry that. . . is covered with little white flowers’. The ‘French Rose bears a large Rose that is Red in the morning and white in the afternoon’. The ‘Bird Pepper grows on a little Green Bush, bears a little Red Berry, and looks very pretty’.

It would be fascinating to know in more detail where the planting was done, how much for example in the vicinity of the Great Lodge itself and how much around Virginia Water, and what was the fate of the flowering shrubs. Some of the original trees are certainly still standing. A marker plaque in the heart of the present Valley Garden has the date 1747 and the cedars in the Avenue that leads from Fort Belvedere to the lake were planted about 1760.

One feature of the planting seems to have been the use of conifers — cedars, scotch firs, pines - as well as the oaks and other hardwoods more traditionally associated with English parkland. A German, Prince P?ckler-Muskau, who visited the Park in the 1820s, recorded his surprise at seeing ‘the whole country here assume a new character and one very uncommon in England — that of my beloved Fatherland: fir- and pine-wood intermingled with oaks and alders; and under foot our heather, and even our sand’.

The Great Lodge itself was extended and largely re-built. It still continued to be known by that name, with variations such as Upper Lodge or Windsor Great Lodge. At some time later in the century, however, it was given the name of Cumberland Lodge which it still bears today. The contemporary engraving by Thomas and Paul Sandby gives a most attractive view of the large and stately mansion, framed by massive oaks, with the Duke setting forth in his coach drawn by four lively brown horses, and deer and ostriches on the lawns at the side of the road. The eighteenth century house no longer exists, but the imposing former stable block, built during the 1750s (it can be seen through the trees in the engraving), remains to witness to the extent of Duke William’s alterations.

The three lakes - Great Meadow Pond (‘the Great Lake’), the Obelisk Pond (‘Hurst Lake’ was its original name) and Virginia Water - were substantially completed in the period of four years from 1748 to 1752. The preparatory work was on an immense scale. Heathland and scrub had to be cleared. Streams had to be dammed. Swampy land had to be drained and the lakes banked. Hill slopes and valleys had to be fashioned to create a landscaped environment. Trees by the thousand had to be planted — thirteen new plantations of woodland were formed around Virginia Water alone. Lawns had to be laid out; Smith’s Lawn, named after Barnard Smith who was the Duke’s Groom, was the most extensive. Roads had to be made and fences erected.

Much of the labour for the work in the Park was provided by Cumberland’s soldiers. Many were mercenaries of German, especially Hanoverian, origin. It is probable that some of the troops disbanded after Culloden were given work in the Park. Certainly there were many men in the labour force after 1748 who had served in the Duke’s regiments. Cumberland himself covered at least the major part of the cost of the undertaking from his privy purse — just as any other great landowner did. Instead of paying higher wages than others, we are told, he ordered the labourers, every day, at noon, table-beer with bread and cheese, besides which he gave them a substantial dinner once a week. A nobleman (or, according to one version of the story, his sister, the Princess Amelia, who kept house for him) took the liberty one day to tell the Duke that His Royal Highness could do very well without so many labourers, who must put him to a prodigious expense. The Duke heard him (or her) out, and then said: ‘To be sure, as you say, I might do without these poor people, but can they do without me?’

Lawlessness had been widespread in the Park and Forest in the first part of the eighteenth century. When George I came to the throne, the railing of the Great Park was so rotten that the deer ‘daily get out, and are killed by the country people’. The deer pens were in ruins and the surviving deer were at daily risk. Poaching was prevalent and it was said that ‘the park is almost become common’. It is necessary perhaps to set Horace Walpole’s comment that Cumberland soon ‘disgusted the neighbourhood by excluding them from most of the benefits of the Park’ in the context of this situation. The exclusion was nonetheless clearly ineffective because, only shortly before Cumberland’s death in 1765, a notice was issued that ‘Whereas from the Indulgence granted to poor People, to pick up the dead Wood in Windsor Great Park, great inconveniences have been found to be very Prejudicial to the Breed of the Game there. . . no Person. . do presume to enter into the said Park, and strole about therein, under pretence of Birds Nesting, or any Pretence Whatever’.

Of the three lakes which were the outcome of Cumberland’s activity, the ‘Great Lake’ (the present Great Meadow Pond) and the Obelisk Pond came first. They are both shown on John Rocque’s contemporary map. This is dated 1752, but can be assumed to represent the lay-out of the Park a year or two earlier. The name of Virginia Water appears, but only the streams which were utilised to form the lake are shown. Probably the construction had been started but not completed. That the two Ponds should come first is natural. Both are much nearer to Cumberland Lodge. The ‘Great Lake’ lies immediately below the Lodge and was its obvious companion. An eighteenth century print shows smooth lawns sloping down to the lake, where now are fields and reed-beds. A pond is marked on Norden’s View of the Great Park exactly where the lake was later formed. It is interesting to speculate that its name of Mistle Pond reflected the abundance of mistlethrushes in the Park — they are still among the commoner birds. The name of Mezel Hill, by the present Royal School and near both Cumberland Lodge and Great Meadow Pond, may be a corruption of mistle. The excavation of the ‘Great Lake’ was itself a major work. It is over 30 acres in extent and has survived to become a nature sanctuary, for which purpose its privacy is strictly protected. The main stream that feeds Great Meadow Pond continues by way of Mill Pond and Johnson’s Pond to become one of the most important tributaries of Virginia Water.

The Obelisk Pond is a smaller lake but still of substantial size. Although the two Ponds are separated by little more than the expanse of Smith’s Lawn, they are different in character. The area of Great Meadow Pond is London clay; that of the Obelisk Pond is the Bagshot sands which are typical of much of the southern part of the Park. Great Meadow Pond is in Berkshire; the Obelisk Pond is in Surrey. Great Meadow Pond is surrounded by reed-beds; the Obelisk Pond is framed by woodland and rhododendrons. The stream which feeds the latter is that which forms such a central feature of the Savill Garden, and it continues at the south-eastern outlet of the Pond to join with another of the tributaries of Virginia Water, reaching the lake by way of Wick Pond.

The soil excavated when the Pond was formed was probably used to increase the height of the hill to the north-east, and here stands the Obelisk which gives its name to the Pond. The inscription on the monument reads: ‘This Obelisk was raised by command of King George II, commemorates the services of his son William, Duke of Cumberland, the success of his arms, and the gratitude of his father. This tablet was inscribed by His Majesty King William IV’. The Obelisk forms the focal point of one of the vistas from Cumberland Lodge.

Some of the phases in the early planning of the lakes are obscure. We know that William, Duke of Cumberland, was the grandee who commissioned and financed the works that transformed so much of the Park. However, just how great was the contribution of Henry Flitcroft and others is difficult to assess. For many years it has been the commonly accepted view that Virginia Water was the creation of the artist brothers Thomas and Paul Sandby. This view has been subjected to challenge. Thomas was not, for example, as many accounts suggest, appointed Deputy Ranger of the Park immediately following the Duke’s own appointment as Ranger; he probably did not become Deputy Ranger until just before the Duke’s death in 1765. He then held that position until his own death in 1798 and during that time lived at the Lower Lodge (where Royal Lodge now is). His administrative responsibilities in the Park must have been extensive; even so the part he personally played in the extension and reconstruction of the lake at the end of the century was limited.

Nevertheless the Sandby brothers occupy an important place in the story. For one thing they had for many years a close association with Duke William. Both were with him on the Scottish campaign. Thomas, the elder, had been born at Nottingham in 1721 and was thus the same age as the Duke. In 1743 he had been appointed his private secretary and draughtsman. After Culloden it is likely that Thomas came to Windsor with the Duke. He went with him to the war in the Netherlands and probably remained there until the conclusion of peace. From 1748 he was at Windsor, sometimes living at Cranbourne Lodge where the Duke himself resided at times, when the Great Lodge was undergoing repairs and re-building. He continued to be described as draughtsman to the Duke; later he became architect and, in 1764, Steward to the Duke.

Thomas’s younger brother, Paul, stayed on in Scotland after the suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion, to assist in the military survey of the new line of road to Fort George on the Moray Firth. He was afterwards appointed draughtsman to the survey, and the many prints and drawings he made are witness to his activity. He did not quit the service of the survey until 1751 and it was then that he went to reside for a time in the Park with his brother.

One of the first-fruits of their partnership at Windsor was the Prospectus of 1754. Dedicated to the Duke, this consisted of eight folio plates. They were drawn by Thomas and engraved on copper by Paul and ‘the best engravers of the day’. We have no comparable series of views of the creation of Virginia Water, the Great Lake and the Belvedere and this in itself gives the Sandbys a special importance. Both the brothers were accomplished artists and became Royal Academicians. Paul excelled as a water-colourist. Over the years — he did not die until 1809 — he travelled widely, depicting any scene or building that took his eye. Above all, the sketches and paintings of the two brothers not only delight the eye but present us with a lively and vivid picture gallery of the Castle, the Town and the Park in their day.

The first Virginia Water was probably the largest single ‘artificial’ lake created in the country during the mid-eighteenth century period of landscape gardening. It was over one-and-a-half miles in length, extending as far as the dam or ‘pond-head’ which was constructed roughly on the line between the present Botany Bay Point and the ‘Ruins’. The water was thus held back, save where it tumbled over a cascade. The main stream then continued under the London road, which lay immediately to the east. The area between the lake and Smith’s Lawn was landscaped and planted with trees and shrubs, while belts of woodland framed the whole development.

Virginia Water was something over and above the ornamental lake which normally formed part of eighteenth century landscaping. Most of the artificial waters of the period were immediately below the great house and in full view from it. This is true of Stourhead, Sheffield Park, Blenheim and many others. At Windsor the ‘Great Lake’ occupied this position. But here, a mile to the south, was a swampy depression which offered opportunities for the creation of a larger lake, capable of carrying pleasure craft and providing opportunities for architectural adornment and landscaping on the grand scale. Virginia Water fits into the parkland scene so perfectly that it seems as natural as any lake could be. But the original conception was excitingly imaginative.

The passion for chinoiserie which was a feature of some of the great works of eighteenth century landscaping has already been mentioned. The first touch of fantasy at the new Virginia Water was the launching of a ‘Chinese’ yacht, the Mandarin. The Sandby brothers have illustrated this for us in several of their drawings. There is first the portrayal of the Mandarin, after a voyage up the Thames, being brbught ashore at The Bells of Ouseley at Old Windsor. In the representation in the Royal Library at Windsor the hulk — for this is all it was at this stage — is being hauled from the river by a large team of oxen. Buildings and trees, as well as the river itself, are sketched in the background. A much more complete representation is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The hulk itself is in the same position, but now we have a crowd of spectators, men, women, children, dogs, all obviously enjoying the unusual sight. The Duke of Cumberland himself is now present and his corpulent figure is prominent in front of a large tree. The transport of the vessel from the river to the lake must have presented difficulties. The distance is some three miles and, whatever the route, there was at least the initial hill as well as the problem of traversing roads unaccustomed to such a use.

Presumably the conversion of the hulk into a Chinese yacht or junk took place on Virginia Water itself. Another of the Sandby drawings shows the completed vessel on the lake with all its whimsical finery and trappings. Mrs Delany described how it was ‘as rich and gay as carving, gilding and japanning can make it’. Fearsome dragons with flames issuing from their mouths are painted on the sides of the vessel, while the yacht is ornamented with lanterns and bells. In the Sandby drawing the yacht is afloat on the lake, while on the shore is a group of lords and ladies. The Duke of Cumberland is showing the yacht to the King or another member of the Royal family and we are told that, when entertaining his nephew, the future George III, on board, the Duke had the vessel illuminated.

Along with the yacht were two other boats, one of which provided accommodation — on suitable occasions — for a military band. Thomas Arne’s Rule Britannia had been given its first performance only a few years before, in 1739, in the little amphitheatre at Cliveden, only a few miles upstream from Windsor. Did the Duke step on board his yacht to the stirring strains of its music? Certainly a rich repertoire was available to the band, with Handel’s Water Music among the obvious choices (but not, presumably, Chinese music). The shores too could have been graced with all the colour and charm of fetes champ?tres, but of such we have no record.

At the head of the lake, on what has ever since been known as China Island, a summer house, again in the Chinese style, was erected. A certain Mrs Lybbe Powys was among its admiring visitors. Writing in 1766, she said: ‘We went to the Chinese Island, on which is a small house quite in the taste of that nation, the outside of which is white tiles set in red lead, decorated with bells and Chinese ornaments. You approach the building by a Chinese bridge, and in a very hot day, as that was, the whole looked cool and pleasing. The inside consists of two state rooms, a drawing-ointed draughtsman to the survey, and the many prints and drawings he made are witness to his activity. He did not quit the service of the survey until 1751 and it was then that he went to reside for a time in the Park with his brother.

One of the first-fruits of their partnership at Windsor was the Prospectus of 1754. Dedicated to the Duke, this consisted of eight folio plates. They were drawn by Thomas and engraved on copper by Paul and ‘the best engravers of the day’. We have no comparable series of views of the creation of Virginia Water, the Great Lake and the Belvedere and this in itself gives the Sandbys a special importance. Both the brothers were accomplished artists and became Royal Academicians. Paul excelled as a water-colourist. Over the years — he did not die until 1809 — he travelled widely, depicting any scene or building that took his eye. Above all, the sketches and paintings of the ter than the famous Rialto at Venice. The Sandby painting shows the bridge about where the present Blacknest or Five Arch Bridge is — still called the ‘High Bridge’ on Ordnance Survey maps. The lake is not wide at this point — indeed the name of Virginia River continued to be used and from a number of viewpoints it still resembles a river rather than a lake. A number of labourers are engaged on various tasks, watched by the Duke on horseback. There are wheelbarrows and horse-drawn carts, while on the other side of the lake, beyond the bridge, a line of cows is coming down to drink. The Mandarin yacht is in the background, where the arm of the lake reaches back to Johnson’s Pond.

Mrs Delany described her impressions on a visit in 1757, when the Duke was away on the Continent. The party walked across the ‘desperately steep’ High Bridge and recorded that it was so contrived that ‘any piece that is decayed may be taken out and repaired without injuring the rest’. They walked across because they were apprehensive about driving, ‘though carriages of all sorts go over it every day’.

Away on the horizon in the picture of the bridge appears a tall building. This was the triangular Belvedere on Shrubs Hill, almost directly above the eastern end of the lake. Fort Belvedere, in its present much larger form, is now too much enclosed by woodland to be seen from Virginia Water. It is often, however, to be seen in early views of the lake. It illustrates perfectly the use of the word ‘belvedere’ to describe ‘a raised turret (or turrets) from which to view scenery’, for from it there were views not only of the lake below but of Windsor Castle to the north, St Paul’s Cathedral to the east and the line of the Hogsback away to the south in Surrey. An engraving of the 1750s shows the Mandarin moored by the side of the lake, with Shrubs Hill and the Belvedere behind. Other boats are also in the picture, along with several swans. Charles Knight, writing later in the century, said:

‘The Belvedere on Shrubs Hill is a triangular building that has a tower at each corner, one of which is a staircase, the other a library and the third a china closet’. Even in this space of time Knight was able to describe it as ‘encompassed by a fine plantation of trees’. Most notable was a majestic avenue of cedars leading from the Belvedere to the shores of the lake.

Duke William’s death in 1765 at least meant that he did not have to witness the destruction of his lake on the first of September three years later. On that day a storm which arose in the night deluged London and the country around with torrents of rain for eight hours. The Annual Register recorded that ‘the late Duke of Cumberland’s fine water-works in Windsor Forest were entirely destroyed; several persons were drowned in different places, as well as horses, oxen and hogs’. Mrs Delany wrote to a friend: ‘I suppose the newspapers have informed you of the extraordinary inundation caused by only one night’s rain on Thursday last. The Virginia Water broke head and is entirely gone, fish and all, and a house in its way carried off as clean as if no house had ever been built there’.