Landscape record 0085101000 - Chalfont Park

Chalfont park was created on part of an estate acquired from Henry II by his treasurer, Ranulf de Brito. It was occupied by Edmund Brudenell, and came to be known as Brudenells Manor. In 1760 General Charles Churchill, the owner, employed Capability Brown to create a formal park landscape. The house was brought by the Hibbert family in 1794. They employed Humphrey Repton to improve the 150 acres of enclosed land. The overall effect of the change was to widen the river Misbourne into a lake, introduce scenic planting, a boat house and an ice house. The house was further modified in 1836 by Anthony Salvin who laid out a cricket pitch. During the early 20th century, Gertrude Jekyll planned a garden alcove, a brick orangery and a wishing well (B8).
Charles Churchill paid Brown £35 in 1760 for work at Chalfont Park (B11).
An extensive country house landscape developed in phases since the mid‐C18 with contributions from nationally‐known designers including Lancelot Brown (mid‐C18), Nathaniel Richmond, Humphry Repton (late C18), Edwin Lutyens and possibly Gertrude Jekyll (early C20). It is one of several parks in the vicinity with work by Brown including Latimer House, Stoke Park, Stoke Place, Moor Park and Langley Park. It is one of several notable parks along the River Misbourne including Shardeloes (where Richmond and Repton also advised), Denham Place and Missenden Abbey. The landscape remains largely intact despite during the C20 some simplification of planting, and losses including the early C20 formal gardens and kitchen garden north of the house, and the insertion of a golf course in the north park and the A413 dual carriageway through the west park. Its significance arises from the level of survival of the complexity of the design and connection with such a variety of architects and landscape designers of national significance and the adaptation of the design to the 'genius loci' (spirit of the place and its form). See report for detail (B12).
Humphry Repton consulted sometime after 1795 and again in 1799 by Thomas Hibbert on improvements to the gardens and park. No Red Book survives, but other sources indicate his proposals on extending the woodland, moving trees and new planting of specimen trees and shrubs in the parkland were carried out. Repton may also have been responsible for the circuit drive, the pleasure grounds at Chalfont Lodge (built 1799), and possibly planting designs for the Hibbert collection of South African plants in the pleasure grounds (B13).