Rousham was one of the first gardens I ever visited as it was not so far from where we lived at Cuddesdon and I vividly remember its combination of parkland, paths and garden monuments, laid out in the early 1720s, originally to designs by Charles Bridgeman.

Alexander Pope described to Brigadier Dormer in November 1726 how ‘I was at Rousham twice last summer in a visit which I find extremely improv’d’[1] and a couple of years later he revisited, describing to Martha Blount how it was ‘I lay one night at Rowsham which is the prettiest place for water-falls, jets, ponds inclosed with beautiful scenes of green and hanging wood, that I ever saw’.[2]

It was no doubt inevitable that the government’s task force looking for potential sites for new towns should have chosen some sites in areas of natural beauty. One of them is the old RAF airfield at Upper Heyford, just north of Rousham, and there is an inevitable risk that development will blight the view of the unspoilt countryside immediately north of Rousham.

It is going to be a test case.

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/gardens/one-of-the-truly-great-gardens-of-the-world-is-at-risk-of-having-its-vistas-and-tranquility-blighted-forever?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=All%20Push%20Subscribers

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[1] George Sherburn (ed.), The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, II 1719-1728 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), p.416.

[2] Pope Correspondence, II, p.513.