Benjamin Hyett
Benjamin Hyett (1708–1762) of Painswick House, Gloucestershire, was an eighteenth-century garden creator.
Life
[edit]He was born 17 December 1708, the eldest son of Charles Hyett (d. 1738), a leading citizen of Gloucester.[1] He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford[2] and the Inner Temple, becoming a barrister in 1731.[3] In 1733 his father bought an estate in Painswick and built a house as a country residence.[4] In 1741 he unsuccessfully stood as MP for Gloucester in the Tory interest.[3] Shortly after[5] he married Frances (d. 1768), the only child of Sir Thomas Snell, a London merchant who had settled in Upton St Leonards.[6][7] He died without any surviving children in 1762 and his estate passed to his brother Nicholas.[3]
Gardens
[edit]By 1740 Hyett had created a Rococo garden at Marybone House, Gloucester, incorporating an eclectic range of features and buildings including a pagoda in approximately 6 acres.[8][9]
A few years later he created a slightly larger garden at his Painswick house, known then as Buenos Aires.[8] It incorporated a statue of Pan by Jan van Nost, which presided over the garden.[10] The main features of the garden were preserved into the 20th century and have now been preserved and opened to the public as the Painswick Rococo Garden.[11]
Visual records of both gardens when newly created were preserved in paintings by Thomas Robins the Elder.[12][13]
References
[edit]- ^ "HYETT, Charles (1677-1738), of Painswick House, nr. Gloucester, Glos". Retrieved 23 March 2024.
- ^ Foster, Joseph. Alumni Oxonienses 1715-1886. p. 725.
- ^ a b c Williams, William Retlaw (1898). The Parliamentary History of the County of Gloucester. p. 210.
- ^ "VCH Gloucestershire Volume 11: Painswick: Manors and other estates". Retrieved 20 March 2024.
- ^ "Pre-nuptial Settlement between Benjamin Hyett of Painswick, esq. and Frances Snell". Retrieved 22 March 2024.
- ^ Frith, Brian (1995). Bigland's Historical, Monumental and Genalogical Collections for Gloucestershire. Record Series. Vol. 8. Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. p. 1377.
- ^ "Will of Sir Thomas Snell of Upton St. Leonards, Knight, Citizen and draper of London". Retrieved 22 March 2024.
- ^ a b Mowl, Timothy (2002). Historic Gardens of Gloucestershire. pp. 82–3.
- ^ Richards, M.E. (1981). "Two Eighteenth-Century Gloucester Gardens". Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 99: 123–126.
- ^ Mowl 2002, pp. 84–5.
- ^ Mowl 2002, p. 84.
- ^ Mowl 2002, pp. 83, 85.
- ^ "Gardening: Portrait of a paradise regained". Independent.co.uk. 23 October 2011.
External links
[edit]- Burial vault discovered 'accidentally' at Gloucester Cathedral, BBC, 2 November 2015
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