Painshill

Painshill (formally Painshill Park) is a restored 18th-century English park and landscape garden in Cobham, Surrey, England. It was designed and created between 1738 and 1773 by the owner, Charles Hamilton. Painshill is Grade I-listed and is a representative of a time when formal baroque gardens were being superseded by a landscape style that used architectural follies and areas of wilderness to construct an idealised representation of nature. The evolving design of Painshill was also influenced by the Picturesque, particularly in the hillier, western half of the park, which Horace Walpole likened to a "kind of Alpine scene".

In designing the park, Hamilton was influenced by 17th-century landscape artists, including Claude Lorrain, Nicholas Poussin and Salvator Rosa, whose works he had encountered on Grand Tours in 1725 and 1732. Painshill is laid out as a series of scenes, crafted by combining architectural features with trees and shrubs, many of which are non-native species. Visitors followed a 4-mile (6.4 km) clockwise circuit, allowing them to experience each area in turn. Several of the surviving follies are listed in their own right, including the Gothic Tower, inspired by a similar structure by John Vanbrugh at Claremont, and the Gothic Temple, which overlooks the western part of the lake. The Grotto, one of the largest examples of its kind in Europe, is decorated with crystalline mineral stones, including quartz, feldspar and Blue John.

After Hamilton sold Painshill in 1773, the park passed through a series of private owners until the Second World War, when it was requisitioned for the Canadian Army. After the war, it was divided and parts were used for commercial forestry. The architectural features began to decay and much of the land became overgrown. Concern over the condition of the park began to grow in the 1960s, but in the late 1970s, over 140 acres (57 ha) were purchased by Elmbridge Borough Council. Restoration of Painshill began in the early 1980s and the park was reopened to visitors on summer weekends from mid-May 1989. Following a protracted planning dispute about the location of the car park, Painshill opened to the public seven-days-a-week from April 1997. In January 1999, the park was awarded a Europa Nostra medal for its "exemplary restoration".