Celebrating Humphry Repton 2018

In 2018 we are celebrating the work of Humphry Repton, the last great landscape designer of the eighteenth century, in the bicentenary of his death.

County Gardens Trusts and other groups around the country have arranged events celebrating Repton’s work. Follow us on Facebook and on Twitter to stay up to date.

Humphry Repton’s life and work

Repton was born in 1752 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. After an unsuccessful start in  the textile business, he set himself up as a landscape gardener. He went on to design around 400 hundred English landscapes and gardens, becoming a worthy successor to the great Capability Brown.

Estates where Repton worked include Tatton Park in Cheshire, Uppark House in West Sussex, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, and Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire. He famously produced ‘Red Books’ or folios to present his proposed improvements, showing ‘before’ and ‘after’ views of the landscape.

Repton’s work links the landscape design of the eighteenth century and the gardenesque movement of the early Victorian years. At the end of his life he said ‘as a landscape designer I have never been superseded by a more successful rival. My own profession, like myself, was becoming extinct.’

Find out more about Humphry Repton’s life and work.

Join in the Celebrations

Do join in this collaborative celebration of one of our greatest landscape and garden designers – the more people who join in, the better the celebration!

If you are organising events, you can use the Celebrating Humphry Repton logo and publicise them on our Repton Events page: post your event here. You will also find a list of Repton sites and a Repton reading list among our Repton campaign materials.

If you would like to get involved or receive email updates email repton@thegardenstrust.org.

As part of the celebrations, Historic England have added Humphry Repton’s landscapes to their interactive map of Designed Landscapes, and you can find out more about their research on their Humphry Repton landscapes page.

The Repton Gazette is a blog exploring a range of questions about Repton’s work.

The Gardens Trust is delighted that its ‘Sharing Repton’ project has been awarded a £99,500 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, made possible by money raised by National Lottery players. Sharing Repton will pilot activities that are designed to help volunteers welcome wider local communities to Repton landscapes, and then share the learning experience with its national network of supporters.