"Sculpting the land", a lecture by Kim Wilkie

Britain is a good place for earth works. The climate, the soils and the topography encourage people to go out and build turf-castles. Since the pre-historic Avebury Ring and the chalk sculpture of the White Horse in Wiltshire, there has been a tradition in the British Isles of sculpting the land into sensuous forms, held firm by close-cropped turf.

Early earth works were usually carefully placed on ridges or knolls to take full advantage of the strategic view and make maximum impact from a distance. Their presence still dominates the landscape millennia later. Ironically earth forms tend to survive even longer than buildings and are repeatedly re-appropriated. Burial mounds, such as the one in Richmond Park, have been re-used for hunting high-points and communication lookouts... During the eighteenth century, Charles Bridgeman was a particular genius with geometric land sculpting... and where his work survives at Stowe, Rousham and most particularly Claremont, it shows a wonderful dramatic artistry. 

Bridgeman’s landforms at Claremont, set beside Aislabie’s moon ponds at Studley Royal, reveal a tradition which has reemerged in contemporary landscape design such as Charles Jencks’ and Maggie Keswick’s work at Portrack. Some of the most imaginative new directions have been led by environmental artists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long. Andy Goldsworthy’s Taking a Wall for a Walk, in Grizedale, for example, humorously combines memory of the old field patterns with a sensuous form that weaves between the trees and land.

My own work has been greatly influenced by this tradition. One of my first projects at Heveningham Hall in Suffolk involved massive earth movements. Heveningham is one of those perfect eighteenth-century country houses that had the best designers of the day. Sir Robert Taylor built the hall; James Wyatt did the interiors; and Lancelot Brown designed the landscape. Unfortunately, Brown died the year after the design and it was never implemented, but he left behind exquisite 10-foot-long plans that we have now been able to implement two centuries later. 2 kilometres of lakes have been dug and a 40 metre 3-arched stone bridge will be built shortly.

Sculpting the land is an ancient and very British tradition. It is one of the most dramatic and yet playful ways of designing in the landscape and enormous fun. The scope for imaginative design will keep me absorbed for the rest of my life.

© Kim Wilkie – Used with permission