Pride and Prejudice Goeth Before a Rainfall

Stourhead is the best example of a garden inspired by the great landscape painters of the seventeenth century. Ernst Gombrich suggests it should bear the signature of an Italianized French painter: Claude Lorrain (1600-82). The Stourhead garden was made by a wealthy English banker who had been buying works of art in Italy at the time he inherited the Stourhead estate. Henry Hoare II's 'Claudian' garden was made in an unusually well-proportioned valley behind the house. The Temple of Flora at Stourhead was made in 1745 and the grotto in 1748. But the key date was 1754, when the lake and the Pantheon were made. It is based on the Pantheon in Rome and the planned walk through the estate is based on the journey of Rome's legendry founder, Aeneas. The five-arched bridge was made in 1762 and the Temple of Apollo in 1765. Gothic features were added later in the century: Alfred's Tower, a Rustic Cottage and a Hermitage. The Stourhead woods were underplanted with Rhododendron ponticum after 1791 and with more exotic species in the twentieth century. - gardenvisit.com





Stourhead's Temple of Apollo was the setting for a dramatic first proposal of Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth in a scene from the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightly. The cast also featured: Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Tom Hollander, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, and Judi Dench.




Word is that filming took place on a dry, but apparently grey day with hoses pouring huge volumes of water down over the rooftop of the temple.