Stourhead: Henry Hoare’s Paradise Revisited
Dudley Dodd
Head of Zeus, 2021
ISBN: 978178854620
319 pages
£40
In his introduction to this publication James Stourton, Stour Provost, tells us of the author’s feeling of the garden as ‘enduring rather than timeless’. Dodd looks to capture these enduring changes, of the owners, the history and landscape of this iconic site, to help us learn more about it and how it came to be.
From Stourhead: Henry Hoare’s Paradise Revisited we learn more about the dominant characters who have shaped the life of the house and gardens. Dodd enables us to get closer to the Hoare family; entrepreneurs who managed to gain a standing in society. Their interest in art and culture is illuminated, as is their expansion of creativity towards the gardens too which led to rich imaginings and radical ideas. The Hoares, like many, toured Italy, bringing a little of the country back with them through the items they bought and the influences that helped develop the house and landscape.
