To do the work involved in the supposed landscaping of Baysgarth House’s 14 acre parkland (see previous blog) the Nelthorpe family would have mustered a workforce and used ‘pattern book’ ideas rather than a nationally recognised landscape gardener. Probably this was true of other similar sized parklands in north Lincolnshire such as at Saxby Hall (financed by the Barton family), Barrow Hall, South Ferriby Hall (see above), Kingsforth and Elsham Hall.
The landscaping of the parkland at Brocklesby Hall was on a much grander scale and in-part followed a plan designed by ‘Capability’ Brown in the 1770s.
Most of the above parkland has been lost to arable agriculture, some commandeered in two World Wars, but not at Barton.
A particularly valuable source of evidence in discovering landscaped parkland is the O.S. First Series, one inch to one mile maps, for the north Lincolnshire area mostly compiled in the 1820s, this one of the earliest parts of England to be so mapped. In the black and grey shading of the time a prominent symbol was chosen for parkland.
To be continued