Hello,
I am writing from France. I work as an archaeologist for INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Archeologiques Preventives) and am specialized on the Bonze Age period. Not many historic gardens at that time !! It so happens that my office neighbour Jean Louis BERNARD (who works at INRAP like me on historical buildings) had to do an archaeological evaluation in the small park of the Chateau de Chantilly – Oise, Picardie. He discovered some remains of a Game of goose from the XVIII th century (Dimensions : more or less 200 m x 100 m). This sort of layout is not that common in parks in France, only 3 known so far in royal domains, and they all belong to the period mid 18th cent. and disappear after 1770.
I am giving him a help (the barrier of English language for him) and tempted to find similar things in Great-Britain and on the web I came across mention of a game of goose in Worksop manor (Nottinghamshire) in a letter that Horace Walpole wrote to his cousin Conway ; the extract is below. I gathered a few things on Worksop manor, including some plans of the park but the game of goose in hornbeam doesn’t appear. Do you know anything on this type of particular garden design for the the 18th century elsewhere in Great-Britain or in Europe ? If so, could you please let me know where I can put my hands on the information or who I could turn to ?
Many thanks in advance for your help…
Sincerely
Ghislaine
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(950)
Arlington Street, Sept. 19, 1758.
(…)I am glad I am not in favour enough to be consulted by my Lord
Duchess(954) on the Gothic farm; she would have given me so
many fine and unintelligible reasons why it should not be as it
should be, that I should have lost a little of my patience.
You don’t tell me if the goose-board in hornbean is quite
finished; and have you forgot that I actually was in t’other
goose-board, the conjuring room ? (…)
footnote : 954) The Duchess of Norfolk. She had planted a game of the
goose in hornbean, at Worksop.
