| Summary: | As evidenced by cartographic, documentary and pictorial sources a small number of the more substantial houses of the region had established within their parklands sometimes quite elegant carriage-drives. These were to give statement of status as well as an often ostentatious display; a personal awareness of the greater World. This was achieved by inclusion of such as mock temples, castellated ruins and similar forms of folly. A brief look at how the access drive of the lesser ‘established’ tried to represent, in their own scale, the formal approach to the main house and how the desire is still evident in the built landscape of today with approaches in miniature to modern houses. A general sweep of the area for examples of ‘drives’ for the families that occupied and beautified their homes with this form of appendage.: The detailed study is of the main carriage drive of Hartland Abbey which indicates how the landscape artist manipulated the natural features to provide a very individual product which reflected the gentrification of lifestyle, then the later decline in the country estate and the loss of some of these superb examples of landscape manipulation. |
|---|