During the Regency Era, the business of the landscape gardener was to disencumber his ground of the stone terraces, balustrades, facades, and temples that were in the previous century profusely employed to decorate every garden. Instead, his job was to give strong effect to particular points of view composed of distant scenery and “furnish” this area with rustic seats, bowers, root-houses and heath-houses, and other such small buildings. Featured here are two unusual designs for garden seating introduced in 1816 for these areas.
The first design shown above is of the pergola or gazebo nature, and the covering is of cloth. The motif on the covering was either woven in the cloth itself or painted upon it. This top apparatus was supported by an iron framing, from which it was farther extended by cords. By preparing sockets in several locations on the grounds, the whole apparatus became portable, and could be removed and fixed in a few minutes. Moreover, in winter it could be put away, as the ribs of the top could be prepared to fold into a small compass, and the covering packed up.
The form of this next design is in imitation of the buildings in India that were frequently erected for monumental or devotional purposes, and very nearly resembles an umbrella. The stem and beams of it were intended to be made of light-work in iron, and the roof filled in with copper sheeting. The stem was fastened firmly into the ground so the wind would have very little effect upon it. In addition, with very little trouble the whole apparatus could be moved from one spot to another.
