Ha Ha

Lancelot "Capability" Brown was responsible for the Brownian landscape style characterized by the use of water, trees, grass, and animals to create a naturalistic scene.

His style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles. - Wikipedia

At Corsham Court Brown started the job of creating the pastoral scene seen from this amazing Elizabethan house in 1760, but it was Henry Repton who after 45 years completed the focal point of the picture, the lake.

How did the animals stay nicely in the scene without straying? Why is there no fence to spoil the view? At the edge of the lawn a long, steep ditch forms an invisible barrier called a ha ha.
Clever trick, eh?

Corsham Court houses magnificent art collected by Sir Paul Methuen. The manor and park remain in the care of the Methuen family.

For the trivia file: Lancelot Brown's nickname Capability came from his fondness of speaking about a country estate having great capability for improvement. Richard Owen Cambridge, the English poet and satirical author, declared that he hoped to die before Brown so that he could "see heaven before it was 'improved'".

This week's vocabulary challenge: Use the word serpentine in casual conversation or while making chit chat with your dentist, hairdresser, neighbor, co-worker, spouse, or at the grocery checkout counter. Let us know how that goes.