A Baroque banquet

The Archer Pavilion, Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, In the care of English Heritage One of the most spectacular garden buildings of the English Baroque–as well as the architect that designed it– is ripe for reappraisal, says Helen Lawrence-Beaton

- Helen Lawrence-Beaton

AFTER centuries of relative obscurity, Thomas Archer (1668–1743) is now taking his rightful place in the pantheon of great British Baroque architects with Wren, Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor and Gibbs. His pavilion at the end of the canal at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, remains one of his most admired buildings and continues to delight modern visitors. Few realise, perhaps, how profoundly the surrounds of the pavilion have changed over time or that Archer contributed other buildings to the landscape here that have vanished.

The closest a modern viewer might come to experiencing the pavilion in its early-18thcentury context is via the atmospheric views by Peter Tillemans of about 1729. These show the gardens in their original character, with clipped topiary, statuary and neatly edged pathways. John Rocque’s 1735 estate plan of Wrest further shows the pavilion at the heart of the estate, the focus of a complex network of avenues and paths that led into the wider landscape. It was positioned to the south of the main house, since rebuilt (COUNTRY LIFE, March 30, 2011), at the end of the Long Water (Fig 2). To the east and west were two woodland groves intersected by a series of serpentine walks and compartments.