Humphry Repton factfile Born on 21st April 1752 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Well-to-do family - son of a tax collector. Moved to Norwich during childhood, attended grammar school. Aged 12 years was sent to the Netherlands to learn Dutch and prepare for a commercial career. 1773 married Mary Clarke, had a much-loved family. Parents died in 1778 and he used the small legacy to move to a modest country estate at Sustead, near Aylsham in Norfolk. Moved his family to a small cottage near Romford, Essex. After unsuccessful times in various employments including the textile trade and as a private secretary, in 1788 he set himself up as a landscape gardener (a job title which he invented). He approached his social contacts to ask for work improving their estates. His first two landscape jobs were for Jeremiah Ives, textile merchant and mayor of , and for Thomas Coke of in Norfolk. Repton wanted to fill the gap left by the death of in 1783. He initially championed Brown’s landscape style but later adopted the ideas of the movement. His work therefore links the landscape design of the eighteenth century and the gardenesque movement of the early Victorian years. His work reintroduced terraces, gravel walks and flower beds into the area around the house, to provide a foreground for views of the landscape. Repton also designed separate flower gardens, with more elaborate ornamental or themed planting, a style which became popular in the nineteenth century. Designed around 400 hundred English landscapes and gardens, becoming known as a worthy successor to . Repton only did the design and left the client to implement the work. As a result, many of his designs were never realised, and he never became wealthy. Commissions included the picturesque landscape at Bristol’s , Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire, in Devon, London’s , in Warwickshire, in Cheshire, Uppark House in Sussex, in Fife and the themed gardens at , Bedfordshire.
Humphry Repton factfile Born on 21st April 1752 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Well-to-do family - son of a tax collector. Moved to Norwich during childhood, attended grammar school. Aged 12 years was sent to the Netherlands to learn Dutch and prepare for a commercial career. 1773 married Mary Clarke, had a much-loved family. Parents died in 1778 and he used the small legacy to move to a modest country estate at Sustead, near Aylsham in Norfolk. Moved his family to a small cottage near Romford, Essex. After unsuccessful times in various employments including the textile trade and as a private secretary, in 1788 he set himself up as a landscape gardener (a job title which he invented). He approached his social contacts to ask for work improving their estates. His first two landscape jobs were for Jeremiah Ives, textile merchant and mayor of , and for Thomas Coke of in Norfolk. Repton wanted to fill the gap left by the death of in 1783. He initially championed Brown’s landscape style but later adopted the ideas of the movement. His work therefore links the landscape design of the eighteenth century and the gardenesque movement of the early Victorian years. His work reintroduced terraces, gravel walks and flower beds into the area around the house, to provide a foreground for views of the landscape. Repton also designed separate flower gardens, with more elaborate ornamental or themed planting, a style which became popular in the nineteenth century. Designed around 400 hundred English landscapes and gardens, becoming known as a worthy successor to . Repton only did the design and left the client to implement the work. As a result, many of his designs were never realised, and he never became wealthy. Commissions included the picturesque landscape at Bristol’s , Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire, in Devon, London’s , in Warwickshire, in Cheshire, Uppark House in Sussex, in Fife and the themed gardens at , Bedfordshire.
Humphry-Repton-factfile-v1.docx