The Britain of Biddulph Grange's time had seen the many accounts and pictures of China engendered by Lord Macartney's audience with the Emperor Qianlong, and was just going through the Opium Wars. Thus the China which the landscape gardener attempted to express was worlds away from the half-imaginary Shangrila reconstructed in the gardens of 18th-century Europe.
這時候的英國，經過馬嘎爾尼大使晉見乾隆皇帝所帶回來的種種見聞錄與畫集，且正經歷鴉片戰爭，所以造園者企圖表達的「中國」，與十八世紀歐洲人在花園裡所營造似幻若真的天堂樂土，已不可同日而語。