Orpheus at Boughton Park
Northamptonshire
for The Duke of Buccleuch &
The Living Landscape Trust,

2007-

Boughton Park is one of the greatest formal landscapes of England. The evolution of the gardens during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has resulted in a strong but complex structure of canals, basins, avenues and the Mount. Ralph Montagu’s initial vision of axial formality has remained as the central theme. It is a garden of land and water; avenues and vistas; rhythm and reflection.

The current Duke of Buccleuch has begun the massive task of restoring the gardens and wishes to create a new feature on the empty space opposite the great Mount.

The proposal is to make a space that emphasizes the scale and mass of the great earthwork, to create an Orphean Hades to complement the Olympian Mount.

The earthwork will be named after Orpheus to celebrate its descending form and as a place for music and contemplation. When Orpheus’ wife, Eurydice, was killed by the bite of a serpent, he went down to the underworld to bring her back. His songs were so beautiful that Hades finally agreed to allow Eurydice to return to the world of the living.

An inverted grass pyramid will descend 7 metres below the level of the restored terraces. Walking around the landscape, the new design will be invisible, but drawing near to the mount, a gentle grass path will spiral down to a square pool of still water deep underground. The water will reflect the sky, a little like an inverted James Turrell occulus.