Repton was a pioneer in the field of landscape architecture. He was also the most famous landscape gardener of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He created, transformed or improved over two hundred places in England. His ideal was natural beauty enhanced by art. This is embodied in our own urban public parks such as Central Park, Regent’s Park and Goethe’s Weimar Park.
However, Repton’s most lasting contribution to his profession lies not in his actual landscaping but in his writings on his art which were derived from his famous Red Books.
In the process of designing a landscape for a client Repton would create a Red Book of the estate. This was a slim volume bound in red leather. It contained his proposals for changes outlined in neat copperplate handwriting and embellished with maps, plans, drawings and water-colours to illustrate his ideas.
Repton’s published writings were the distillations of the most valuable material from the Red Books. Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (1798), Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1805), An Enquiry into the Changes of Taste in Landscape Gardening (1806), and Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1816) are not merely theoretical works but the result of ‘hands on’ experience.
Repton lived in a cottage on the corner of Main Road and Belgores Lane, Romford (now Lloyds TSB Bank) from 1783 until his death in 1818. The plaque below appears on the site.