The Impact of the Norman Invasion on Anglo Saxon Garden Design
The Impact of the Norman Invasion on Anglo Saxon Garden Design The advent of the Normans in the later half of the 11th century significantly altered The Anglo-Saxon ways of living.
Architecture and gardening were attributes that the Normans excelled in, trumping that of the Anglo-Saxons at the time of the occupation. But home life, household architecture, and decoration were out of the question until the Normans taken over the entire population. Castles were more fundamental constructions and often built on blustery hills, where their people devoted both time and space to exercising offense and defense, while monasteries were major stone buildings, commonly positioned in the widest, most fruitful hollows. Gardening, a peaceful occupation, was unfeasible in these fruitless fortifications. The early Anglo-Norman style of architecture is represented in Berkeley Castle, which is most likely the most unscathed example we have. The keep is said to date from the time of William the Conqueror. A significant terrace serves as a deterrent to invaders who would attempt to mine the walls of the building. On one of these parapets is a scenic bowling green covered in grass and surrounded by an aged hedge of yew that has been shaped into coarse battlements.
Contemporary Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings
Contemporary Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings A fountain, an incredible piece of engineering, not only supplies drinking water as it pours into a basin, it can also propel water high into the air for a noteworthy effect.The main purpose of a fountain was originally strictly functional.
People in cities, towns and villages received their drinking water, as well as water to bathe and wash, via aqueducts or springs in the area. Up to the late 19th century, water fountains had to be near an aqueduct or reservoir and more elevated than the fountain so that gravity could make the water flow down or shoot high into the air. Serving as an element of decoration and celebration, fountains also supplied clean, fresh drinking water. Bronze or stone masks of animals and heroes were commonly seen on Roman fountains. To depict the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages introduced fountains to their designs. The fountains found in the Gardens of Versailles were meant to show the power over nature held by King Louis XIV of France. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries manufactured baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the spot where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
The end of the 19th century saw the rise in usage of indoor plumbing to provide drinking water, so urban fountains were relegated to purely decorative elements. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity helped fountains to bring recycled water into living spaces as well as create special water effects.
Beautifying city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the functions of modern-day fountains.