Batty Langley (''baptised'' 14 September 1696 – 3 March 1751) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

garden designer, and prolific writer who produced a number of engraved designs for " Gothick" structures, summerhouses and garden seats in the years before the mid-18th century. An eccentric

landscape designer Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and ga ...

, he gave four of his sons the names Hiram,

Euclid Euclid (; grc-gre, Εὐκλείδης; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the '' Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of ...

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...

and

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientis ...

. He published extensively, and attempted to "improve"

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

forms by giving them classical proportions. BattyLangleygarden

Early life

Langley was baptised in

Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boro ...

, Middlesex, the son of a jobbing gardener Daniel Langley and his wife Elizabeth. He bore the name of David Batty, one of his father's patrons. He started worked as a gardener, inheriting some of his father's clients in Twickenham, then a village of suburban

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became ...

s within easy reach of London by a pleasant water journey on the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

. An early client was Thomas Vernon of Twickenham Park. He married Anne Smith in February 1719. They had four children, but she died in June 1726. He had ten further children with his second wife, Catherine.

Landscape gardening

Langley moved into surveying and

landscape gardening Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

. He published his first book, ''Practical Geometry'', in 1726. Inspired by Switzer's ''Ichnographia Rustica'' of 1718, Langley advocated more irregular, informal gardens, with rococo "arti-natural" landscaping. His sinuous forms predated

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...

's line of beauty. For the

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

house built at Twickenham by James Johnston in 1710 (later Orleans House, demolished 1926), Langley, probably on his own endeavour, prepared and published a garden plan, which offered an encyclopaedia of the garden features that were swiftly becoming obsolete by the time the plan was published in Langley's ''A Sure Method of Improving Estates'' (1728): here are several

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that le ...

s, a "

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

" with many tortuous path-turnings, garden rooms or ''cabinets de verdure'' cut into dense woodland, formal stretches of

garden canal In the history of gardening and landscaping, a canal is a relatively large piece of water that has a very regular shape, usually long, thin and rectangular. The peak period for garden canals was the 17th and 18th centuries, by the end of which ...

and formally shaped basins of water, some with central fountains, and a central

allée In landscaping, an avenue (from the French), alameda (from the Portuguese and Spanish), or allée (from the French), is traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its ...

of trees leading to an exedra. His ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728) included designs for mazes, a feature he could never quite leave behind, with 28 plates engraved by his brother Thomas. He also published ''A Sure Method of Improving Estates'' (1728) and ''Pomona'' (1729). He also undertook work at

Castle Howard Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, within the civil parish of Henderskelfe, located north of York. It is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years ...

in North Yorkshire and

Wrest Park Wrest Park is a country estate located in Silsoe, Bedfordshire, England. It comprises Wrest Park, a Grade I listed country house, and Wrest Park Gardens, also Grade I listed, formal gardens surrounding the mansion. History Thomas Carew ...

in Bedfordshire.

Architecture

Langley moved from Twickenham to London in 1729, and shifted again from landscape gardening to architecture. Working near Exeter Change in the Strand, he published ''A Sure Guide to Builders'' in 1729. He moved to Westminster in the 1730s, where he started to teach drawing, geometry, architecture, and garden design, and continued to teach when he moved to Soho in 1738. He also made and sold stone garden ornaments. Despite his literary aspirations, and advertisements in architectural journals, he secured few commissions, submitting an unsolicited proposal for the competition to design a new Mansion House in 1735 and a design for a new

Westminster Bridge Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side. The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the ...

in 1736-7. He inclined strongly towards a home-grown English architectural form, publishing articles in the

Grub Street Journal ''The Grub-Street Journal'', published from 8 January 1730 to 1738, was a satire on popular journalism and hack-writing as it was conducted in Grub Street in London. It was largely edited by the nonjuror Richard Russel and the botanist John Marty ...

under the pseudonym "Hiram" from July 1734 to March 1735, praising

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It ...

(or as he termed it "native Saxon") and rejecting the "imported"

Palladian architecture Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

favoured by Lord Burlington and his circle. He published a wide range of architectural books, from a huge folio on ''Ancient Masonry'' in parts from 1733 to 1736 with over 450 plates, through ''The Builder's Complete Assistant'' of 1738 (also known as ''The Builder's Complete Chest-Book'') and ''The Builder's Jewel'' of 1741, to the tiny ''The Workman's Golden Rule'' in 1750, in vicesimo-quarto. He is best known for one of his confident self-promotions, ''Ancient Architecture, Restored, and Improved'' published in 1742 and reissued in 1747 as ''Gothic Architecture, improved by Rules and Proportions'', a bit of cockscombry that thoroughly irritated

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...

, whose Gothick villa at Twickenham,

Strawberry Hill Strawberry Hill may refer to: United Kingdom *Strawberry Hill, London, England ** Strawberry Hill House, Horace Walpole's Gothic revival villa **Strawberry Hill railway station United States * Strawberry Hill (San Francisco), California *Strawber ...

, gave impetus to the stirrings of the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

All that his books achieved, has been to teach carpenters to massacre that venerable species, and to give occasion to those who know nothing of the matter, and who mistake his clumsy efforts for real imitations, to censure the productions of our ancestors, whose bold and beautiful fabrics Sir
Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 church ...
viewed and reviewed with astonishment, and never mentioned without esteem. (Walpole, ''Anecdotes of Painting'', 1798, p 484)

His book, with engravings by his brother Thomas, attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions and to create a scheme of architectural orders for Gothic architecture. He provided inspiration for elements of buildings from

Great Fulford Great Fulford is an historic estate in the parish of Dunsford, Devon. The grade I listed manor house, known as Great Fulford House, is about 9 miles west of Exeter. Its site was said in 1810 to be "probably the most ancient in the county". ...

and

Hartland Abbey Hartland Abbey is a former abbey and current family home to the Stucley family. It is located in Hartland, Devon. The current owner is Sir Hugh George Copplestone Bampfylde Stucley, 6th Baronet. History Hartland Abbey was built in 1157 and co ...

in Devon, to Speedwell Castle in

Brewood Brewood is an ancient market town in the civil parish of Brewood and Coven, in the South Staffordshire district, in the county of Staffordshire, England. Located around , Brewood lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton ci ...

in Staffordshire, and Tissington Hall in Derbyshire, and the Gothic temple at

Bramham Park Bramham Park is a Grade I listed 18th-century country house in Bramham, between Leeds and Wetherby, in West Yorkshire, England. The house, constructed of magnesian limestone ashlar with stone slate roofs in a classical style, is built to a li ...

in Yorkshire, and gates at

Castletown House Castletown House, Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, is a Palladian country house built in 1722 for William Conolly, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. It formed the centrepiece of an estate. Sold to developers in 1965, the estate ...

in County Kildare. Langley's books were also enormously influential in Britain's American colonies. At

Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...

, for example,

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

relied upon plate 51 of Langley's ''The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs'' as the source for the famous Venetian (or Palladian) window in the dining room; upon plate 54 of the same book for the ocular window on Mount Vernon's western facade; and upon plate 75 of Langley's ''The Builder's Jewel'' for the rusticated wood siding. Batty Langley was also thought to be an important

Freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

; his naming of his son Hiram was a reference to the architect, prominent in Masonic tradition and symbolism, of Solomon's Temple, and many of his books were dedicated to his Masonic brethren. The ''frontispiece'' to ''The Builder's Jewel'' (1741), for example, contains many examples of Masonic symbolism found in the first three degrees of Freemasonry. He was imprisoned for debt in

Newgate Prison Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, t ...

and wrote an account of that institution, ''An Accurate Description of Newgate''. He died at home in Soho.

References

The Twickenham Museum:
Batty Langley
University of Rochester Book of the Month: Batty Langley, ''New Principles of Gardening'', 1728
Detailed illustrated report. * "Batty Langley: A Tutor to Freemasons (1696-1751)", Eileen Harris, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 119, No. 890 (May 1977), pp. 327–333+335, Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/878768 {{DEFAULTSORT:Langley, Batty 1696 births 1751 deaths English landscape architects English gardeners Landscape or garden designers British garden writers People imprisoned for debt Freemasons of the Premier Grand Lodge of England