The Diana Fountain in Bushy Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, is a seventeenth-century statue ensemble and water feature in an eighteenth-century setting with a surrounding pool and mile long tree lined vistas which honors the Roman Goddess Diana.[1] Originally created for Somerset House in the 1630s, and remodelled about 1690, the fountain has stood since 1713 in Bushy Park, and now forms a large traffic island in Chestnut Avenue.
It is the focal point of two major vistas designed by Sir Christopher Wren, including Chestnut Avenue which is the ceremonial landward approach to Hampton Court Palace. The traffic island is circular and contains a 400-foot (120m) diameter pool surrounded by lawns, with the Diana statue on a tall base in the middle of the pool. The fountain was listed as Grade II in 1952 and in 2011 reclassified as Grade I.[2]
History
The bronze sculptures were originally commissioned by Charles I for Queen Henrietta Maria's garden at Somerset House in central London. The original design for the fountain was apparently by Inigo Jones, whose sketch drawing survives at Chatsworth House, showing figures recognisably the same as those in place today, but in a different arrangement and in a different stonework setting. The Somerset House base was lower, and the surrounding pool much smaller, enabling a much closer view of the figures than is possible today. The central figure is naked in the drawing, and parts of the design are closely copied from engravings of earlier fountains in Bologna and Augsburg.[3]
The execution of the gilt statue which forms the pinnacle of the tableaux has been attributed to Hubert Le Sueur, and related to payments to him from the king. The other metal sculptures, which are still ungilded, have been attributed to his rival Francesco Fanelli,[4] and also to Le Sueur; a mention by John Evelyn in 1662 gave the whole fountain to Fanelli,[5] but most historians follow the Royal Parks in preferring the documented involvement of Le Sueur. Preparation of the site had begun in 1633–34, and Le Sueur was given what appears to be his final payment after completion in 1637; Nicholas Stone was also paid for work on the stone elements, which were in black marble.[6] In the original arrangement, recorded in a drawing of perhaps the 1670s, the figures of the boys, now on the corners, were higher up, at a level between the central female figure above and the sea-monsters carrying women below, and the scallop shells were on the corners, level with the breasts of the four female figures, catching water spouting from the fish held by the boys.[7]
During the English CommonwealthOliver Cromwell had the fountain relocated to the privy garden at Hampton Court Palace, where this and other such works were not popular with all his supporters; he was urged by a Mrs Nethaway to "Demolish these monsters that are set up as ornaments".[8] It is in an inventory of 1659 that the central figure is first called "Arethusa". After 1689 William III and Mary II commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to rebuild and expand much of Hampton Court Palace, and this eventually included the creation of Chestnut Avenue with its centrepiece the Diana Fountain as the grand approach to the Palace crossing Bushy Park. Wren, supervising William Talman, completed this part of the project in 1713 during the reign of Queen Anne. The top, scrolled part of the current base, and so the current rearrangement of the figures, is by Edward Pierce, in about 1690, when the sculptures were still in the privy garden, although the fountain was removed from there and put in storage in 1701. The lower rusticated part, "disproportionately tall",[9] was erected for the new site in Bushy Park, and the central figure was gilded, apparently for the first time, for its re-erection.[10]
The female figure on top of the fountain "has over her long life been known as Diana, Arethusa, Venus and even Proserpina", and recently "some younger visitors" take her for Diana, Princess of Wales.[11] The official view is now firmly that she represents Arethusa, although the fountain continues to be known as the "Diana Fountain", and dissident views are still held by some parties.[12][13][14]
Charles I had the Longford River dug from the River Colne to Hampton Court Palace in order to power the palace water features,[15]51°24′36″N0°20′10″W / 51.40992°N 0.33619°W / 51.40992; -0.33619 and in 1713 Sir Christopher Wren utilised this water to give the complex a set of gravity fed water spouts. In the 297 years after the statue was relocated to its current site in the park, many of the waterspouts became clogged and only four were functioning before the renovations of 2009/10.
During World War II the pool was drained and part of Chestnut Avenue was used for Camp Griffiss, the first headquarters of SHAEF and the base where D-Day was planned. The base closed in the 1950s and Chestnut Avenue was subsequently restored.[16] The complex was renovated in 2010 and the main statue was re-gilded.[17]
Gallery
Close ups of nymphs showing the source of some of the waterjets
Somerset House and gardens in 1722, after the fountain had been moved
Prior to restoration, the central statue ungilded and most waterspouts were blocked
The pool was drained during the restoration
Diana being returned after restoration
Vistas
The Diana Fountain is at the junction of two long straight tree lined avenues, Lime Avenue and Chestnut Avenue which cross at right angles. The Junction is off centre to both Avenues.
Chestnut Avenue
Chestnut Avenue crosses Bushy Park from Teddington to Hampton Court Palace and contains a road with wide lawns on both sides. There are multiple rows of horse chestnut trees on both sides of Chestnut Avenue.
Chestnut Avenue was created as the ceremonial approach to Hampton Court Palace and to this day still contains a road across the Park, though for the sake of the deer, motor vehicles are only allowed on it during daylight hours. It was part of the route for the men's road race cycling event at the 2012 Summer Olympics.[18]
Diana with Chestnut Avenue behind
Detail shot of the rows of trees near the Teddington gate
Lime Avenue
Lime Avenue is grassed and has multiple rows of lime trees on both sides of it; the longer of its two sections runs between The Diana Fountain and White Lodge.
Lime Avenue looking towards White Lodge
The avenues are grazed by herds of Fallow and Red deer
The Diana Fountain viewed along Lime Avenue
A Ha-ha at the White Lodge end of Lime Avenue keeps the deer in the park without interrupting the view from the Diana fountain
Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, 12 miles southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames.
Hampton is a suburban area on the north bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, in the historic County of Middlesex.
Bushy Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is the second largest of London's Royal Parks, at 445 hectares in area, after Richmond Park. The park, most of which is open to the public, is immediately north of Hampton Court Palace and Hampton Court Park and is a few minutes' walk from the west side of Kingston Bridge. It is surrounded by Teddington, Hampton, Hampton Hill and Hampton Wick and is mainly within the post towns of Hampton and Teddington, those of East Molesey and Kingston upon Thames taking the remainder.
Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738) was an English garden designer who helped pioneer the naturalistic landscape style. Although he was a key figure in the transition of English garden design from the Anglo-Dutch formality of patterned parterres and avenues to a freer style that incorporated formal, structural and wilderness elements, Bridgeman's innovations in English landscape architecture have been somewhat eclipsed by the work of his more famous successors, William Kent and Lancelot "Capability" Brown.
Brussels Park is the largest urban public park in central Brussels, Belgium. Formerly known and still sometimes colloquially referred to as the Royal Park, it was the city's first public park, being originally laid out between 1776 and 1783 in a neoclassical style by the French architect Gilles-Barnabé Guimard and the Austrian landscape architect Joachim Zinner, as part of an urban project including the Place Royale/Koningsplein. The area of the rectangular park is 13.1 ha.
Hampton Court Park, also known as Home Park, is a walled royal park managed by the Historic Royal Palaces. The park lies between the gardens of Hampton Court Palace and Kingston upon Thames and Surbiton in south west London, England, mostly within the post town of East Molesey, but with its eastern extremity within the post town of Kingston. In 2014, part of the park was designated a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It takes up most of the final (lowest) meander of the non-tidal reaches of the River Thames and is mainly divided between a golf course, meadows interspersed with trees used for deer, seasonal horse grazing and wildlife. A corner of the park is used annually for the Hampton Court Flower Show and the part nearest to the palace has the Long Water — an early set of hydro-engineered ponds or lakes, fed by water from the distant River Colne, as are the bodies of water in the neighbouring park, Bushy Park.
Hampton Hill is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames to the south of Twickenham. It is bounded by Fulwell and Twickenham Golf Courses to the northwest; a railway line road bridge at the junction of Wellington Road and Clonmel Road; a line southward just east of Wellington Road; Bushy Park to the southeast; and the artificial Longford River to the south and west. Hampton Hill is served by Fulwell railway station and Hampton railway station on the Shepperton to Waterloo line. It is part of what is collectively known as The Hamptons. Much of Hampton Hill High Street, and some neighbouring residential areas are designated as a conservation area.
The Longford River is an artificial waterway, a distributary designed to embellish a park, that diverts water 12 miles (19 km) from the River Colne at Longford near Colnbrook in England, to Bushy Park and Hampton Court Palace. Its main outlet is to the reach above Molesey Lock with lesser pond outlet channels to that above Teddington Lock. The waterway was built for King Charles I in 1638/39 as a water supply for Hampton Court. Water features in Bushy Park were added in 1710. North of the A30, its course has been diverted more than once as London Heathrow Airport has grown. Its cascades, grassed banks and fountains in Bushy Park were restored and reopened to the public in 2009 to close to their original state.
The A309 is a mostly primary status A-road that runs in two sections, a short section in Twickenham and Teddington as a non-primary status A-road, as well as the much longer primary A- Road section that runs from Hampton Court to Hook.
Hubert Le Sueur was a French sculptor with the contemporaneous reputation of having trained in Giambologna's Florentine workshop. He assisted Giambologna's foreman, Pietro Tacca, in Paris, in finishing and erecting the equestrian statue of Henri IV on the Pont Neuf. He moved to England and spent the most productive decades of his working career there, providing monuments, portraits and replicas of classical antiquities for the court of Charles I, where his main rival was Francesco Fanelli.
Francesco Fanelli was an Italian sculptor, born in Florence, who spent most of his career in England.
Teddington is an affluent suburb of London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and situated close to the border with Surrey, the district became part of Greater London in 1965. In 2021, The Sunday Times named Teddington as the best place to live in London.
The Old Court House is a Grade II* listed house located off Hampton Court Green in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames; its origins date back to 1536. The architect Sir Christopher Wren, who lived there from 1708 to 1723, was given a 50-year lease on the property by Queen Anne in lieu of overdue payments for his work on St Paul's Cathedral. The lease passed from Wren's son to his grandson. It was purchased from the Crown Estate in 1984.
St Albans Riverside is a park in Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is linear with long sides between the Thames and Hampton Court Road. It runs from southeast of Garrick's Villa and his Temple to Shakespeare, Garrick's Lawn, Thames Street to a point 90 metres southeast of the interrupting small bridge that serves Tagg's Island.
Edward Pierce or Pearce (1630–1695) was a 17th century English sculptor and architectural sculptor. He was also an avid collector of books, drawings and plaster figures.
References
↑ The gold female figure is not actually the Roman goddess Diana, it depicts her honoured friend Arethusa, a water nymph, who Diana turned into a stream in order to help her avoid the advances of lesser-God, Alpheus. In Sicily, Italy, there is a larger water feature depicting this myth, where the actual source of the stream is which inspired the original myth.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
