Lot Essay
This watercolour depicts an example of an early garden design by Sir Humphry Repton. Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner summoned Humphry Repton for advice before 1808. Repton describes in his memoir (BL Add. MSS 62112) his visit to the derelict mansion at Battlesden where he was employed to alter the house and survey the park. A view in The Polite Repository (for which Repton made an illustration of Battlesden in 1808) is taken from the same view point, and shows none of the ornamental garden. It is likely therefore that the layout recorded by Shepherd was made in the years after 1808, and the work may have been carried out by one of Repton's sons. The tightness of Repton's garden planning is here relaxed and the accent upon the flower garden is pronounced.
It was at Battlesden that Joseph Paxton first learned his trade from 1818, and it is not improbable that he is the young gardener shown raking the lawn, and he might well have observed with interest the cast iron greenhouse. Paxton's associations with Battlesden did not end here as he returned in 1860 as Sir Joseph Paxton to rebuild the house with G. H. Stokes.
Battlesden Park Estate was purchased from Lady Bathurst in 1724 by Sir Gregory Page, 2nd Baronet of Wricklemarsh in Kent, for his younger brother Thomas. Already a large landowner in Kent, this purchase, the first of several in Bedfordshire, placed the Page-Turners among the ten largest landowners in the county by 1743. In 1775 on the death of Sir Gregory Page, all the estates were inherited by Sir Gregory Turner, 3rd Baronet of Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, a great grandson of the first Page Baronet. It was for the 3rd Baronet's son, Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner that George Shepherd was to paint a series of ten watercolours of Battlesden. From the date of the sketch, 1812, and the date that the watercolour was finally executed, 1818, it has been possible to identify the group walking in the garden. Gregory Osborne married Helen Elizabeth Bayfield of Norfolk in July 1818. She is depicted on the extreme left of the group wearing a wedding dress with Gregory Osborne second from the right showing off his garden, and holding the hand of the child. Gregory's younger brother Edward George Thomas (later 5th Baronet) also married in 1818, four or five months later, it is therefore likely that it is Edward who is shown standing with his back to the painter, while his fiancé, Sophia, is on the left of Frances Lady Page-Turner, widow of the 3rd Baronet. The grouping of the figures suggests that the watercolour was painted to celebrate the marriage of Gregory Osborne Page Turner, and the engagement of his brother, Edward.
We are grateful to John Harris for his assistance in cataloguing this
It was at Battlesden that Joseph Paxton first learned his trade from 1818, and it is not improbable that he is the young gardener shown raking the lawn, and he might well have observed with interest the cast iron greenhouse. Paxton's associations with Battlesden did not end here as he returned in 1860 as Sir Joseph Paxton to rebuild the house with G. H. Stokes.
Battlesden Park Estate was purchased from Lady Bathurst in 1724 by Sir Gregory Page, 2nd Baronet of Wricklemarsh in Kent, for his younger brother Thomas. Already a large landowner in Kent, this purchase, the first of several in Bedfordshire, placed the Page-Turners among the ten largest landowners in the county by 1743. In 1775 on the death of Sir Gregory Page, all the estates were inherited by Sir Gregory Turner, 3rd Baronet of Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, a great grandson of the first Page Baronet. It was for the 3rd Baronet's son, Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner that George Shepherd was to paint a series of ten watercolours of Battlesden. From the date of the sketch, 1812, and the date that the watercolour was finally executed, 1818, it has been possible to identify the group walking in the garden. Gregory Osborne married Helen Elizabeth Bayfield of Norfolk in July 1818. She is depicted on the extreme left of the group wearing a wedding dress with Gregory Osborne second from the right showing off his garden, and holding the hand of the child. Gregory's younger brother Edward George Thomas (later 5th Baronet) also married in 1818, four or five months later, it is therefore likely that it is Edward who is shown standing with his back to the painter, while his fiancé, Sophia, is on the left of Frances Lady Page-Turner, widow of the 3rd Baronet. The grouping of the figures suggests that the watercolour was painted to celebrate the marriage of Gregory Osborne Page Turner, and the engagement of his brother, Edward.
We are grateful to John Harris for his assistance in cataloguing this