Landscape record 0535905000 - Denham Mount

Landscape design by Robert Luger, pre-1823. Property subsequently owned by a curator of Kew Gardens, who planted specimin trees. Also a 19th century ice house, gates, lodge and stables, small lake, shrubberies and a possible kitchen garden (B3).
The grounds of an early Regency-style Italianate country villa, built c.1800-10, with minor modifications in the later C19 and early C20. The 16 ha. site on the Chiltern dip slope is of a typical informal Regency-style layout focussed on the detached villa. The extent and survival of villa gardens is not well recorded and this is a good example at this scale, with an ensemble of typical landscape features focused on architect Robert Lugar’s three main structures (lodge/gateway, stable block and villa) including the serpentine drive, park and pleasure grounds. The early layout survives largely intact except for the loss of the walled kitchen garden. It was published in Lugar’s early pattern book 'Plans and views of Ornamental Domestic Buildings' (1811, 2nd edn. 1823), with two plans and a view of the villa and
its immediate surrounds, which has little altered since then.
At this time architects were pioneering the Italianate style for this type of modest residence for the growing middle classes, one of the most important being John Nash’s Cronkhill, Shropshire (1802), said to be the earliest Italianate villa in England. It is unclear to what extent Lugar designed the grounds but they are clearly by an expert, taking advantage of the topography and other aspects of the locality to site the house to greatest advantage in its grounds. The house has particular similarities with Lugar’s Brandon Cottage/Lodge in Warwickshire, also illustrated in his 'Plans and Views' (1823 edn, pls. 14-16), another early work probably of c.1800-1810. See report for detail (B4).