The Great Sunrise Photograph by John Chivers

The Great Sunrise

by John Chivers

Canvas Print

Framed Print

Art Print

Poster

Metal Print

Acrylic Print

Wood Print

Greeting Card

Title

The Great Sunrise

Artist

John Chivers

Medium

Photograph - Photo Print

Description

This shot was taken at the wonderful Corsham park in the grounds of Corsham court. A huge vast wonderfully beautiful lake lit up in the early morning fog.
A found to capture the greatness ov the scene a panoramic was most fitting. Here is a bit of fun!! can you spot the family of ducks in this picture??

Here is a little info on the sight.

Mr Paul Methuen was intent on improving his property at Corsham following his acquisition in 1745. From a family of wealthy Wiltshire clothiers, he had the means not only to enlarge the mansion house but further to buy land and property in the assimilation of a country estate. It is known, from William Simpson's map of 1770, that additional lands had been purchased by that time in the embryonic development of the estate centered on Corsham House. The improvement of this property and its setting was Methuen's priority and in doing so he engaged the best talents of the day.

Proposals for the reshaping of the landscape by Greening and Oram had been rejected when Lancelot Brown was first invited to Corsham in 1759. Like his predecessors, Brown was confined to a consideration of the lands extending immediately to the east, the house being sited on the west side of a deer park bordering the settlement of Corsham. Uphill views to the north precluded any scheme in that direction, as did the Elizabethan courtyard to the south.

Brown advocated the naturalisation of the landscape and integration of house, leisure grounds and Park beyond. From the gardens he had devised a panoramic walk to the north and east. This "Great Walk" (now known as the "North Walk") was planted with a dense screen of trees and shrubs concealing the views to the north and west, thereby focussing attention on Brown's park to the east. The private stretch of this path passes into Mynte Wood (planted as the northern fringe of Brown's park) and, at the point where it is crossed by a public footpath, an ornamental arch of "petrified" stone was built to allow the family and their guests to walk uninterrupted beneath the public right of way. The footpath still passes over the dry arch in the middle of the wood. It links Brown's park with the land to the north, later landscaped by Repton.

Brown achieved a unity between the setting of the Picture Collection and the landscape view which was noted by Eighteenth Century connoisseurs who related Brown's landscape gardening prowess to the landscape paintings of Claud and Poussin.

The Park Today:

Corsham Park was transformed (as were so many English landscapes) on the demise of the elm tree. During the late 1970s, thousands of Elm trees were felled across the Corsham Estate as Dutch Elm disease took hold. Over the previous hundred years or so, the landscape had been in decline as the lake had silted up and many of the Oaks become stag-headed. All inland water bodies silt up over time and eventually become marshes without intervention. Oak trees are not particularly well suited to the shallow calcareous soils, prematurely dying back when their roots hit the impenetrable bedrock. Furthermore, many acres of sheep pasture had been lost to arable cultivation and the shallow rooted Oaks suffered in consequence. The late Sixth Lord Methen had replanted the north and south avenues with Lime, although it was not until 1998 that a co-ordinated and sustained programme of restoration was embarked upon.

A restoration and management plan was drawn up entailing proposals for the dredging of the lake and the re-establishment of pasture over the cultivated land. Additionally, more than 500 individually sheltered parkland trees were to be planted throughout the Park.

The project, supported by DEFRA, under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, got underway in 1999 when the lake was drained prior to some 90,000 tonnes of silt being dredged from its basin. This was allowed to dry out (over the ensuing 24 months) before being incorporated into the land to the north. Since this time all land, previously in arable cultivation, has been re-seeded with traditional grass species and there is a prohibition on the use of fertilisers and pesticides generally (with some limited exceptions).

The peripheral woodland is an important feature of the Park and, whilst not encompassed by the Stewardship Scheme, has similarly been the subject of restoration. The woods and copses have been thinned and underplanted with thousands of Oak trees and other native species. They will continue to form the backdrop of this pastoral (but entirely artificial) landscape for generations to come.