NHER 30472 (Designed Landscape record) - Melton Constable Park

This is a landscape park, surrounding Melton Constable Hall (NHER 3241). The park and gardens are shown in detail in 'Britannia Illustrata' by Kip and Knyff in 1707. The formal gardens were extensive and complex, and included elements of an earlier formal landscape shown on an estate map of 1674. The late 17th century garden was designed around a series of enclosures filled with formal planting, elaborate parterres, an ornamental canal, fountains, a series of four large fish ponds, and garden buildings. The gardens were set within a deer park with a number of avenues. The western avenue was focused on a standing, or hunting tower, now known as the Bath House (NHER 3243). These formal gardens survived until the early 18th century, but they had disappeared by 1741. In 1764 Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was employed to carry out improvements to the park. Brown levelled much of the area around the hall, including two of the late 17th century fishponds to the north of the Hall. Brown also created the lake, planted perimeter belts, Gothicised the Bath House and provided designs for several other garden buildings. In the 1840s or 1850s a terraced Italianate garden was laid out around the Hall, with balustrades, steps and fountains.