Following on from the discussion as to whether or not the amphitheatre in the garden of Vanbrugh Castle dates back to Vanbrugh’s time, I happened to come across a reference to the amphitheatre that Alexander Pope had had made in his garden by March 1726, the month of Vanbrugh’s death, when he wrote to the Earl of Oxford how ‘‘I have just turfed a little Bridgemannic theatre myself.  It was done by a detachment of his [Bridgeman’s] workmen from the Prince’s, all at a stroke, and it is yet unpaid for, but that is nothing with a poetical genius’. Vanbrugh, of course, worked closely with Bridgeman at Stowe. So, it is not unimaginable that he had a ‘little Bridgemannic theatre’ too. I don’t think Vanbrugh much liked Pope – and vice versa – but it wouldn’t have stopped them following the same idea.