Early twentieth century plan of the Garden at Castle Bromwich Hall

This plan perfectly demonstrates the formality of the gardens at Castle Bromwich Hall. Situated to the east of Birmingham, the house was the home of the Bridgeman family before they inherited Weston Park in the mid eighteenth century. William Winde supplied designs for formal parterres to the north and west of the house in circa 1698, although modified in execution. Here, in the early eighteenth century, Sir John Bridgeman 3rd Baronet laid out an elaborate garden, with straight walks, outdoor 'rooms' and geometrical pools and other features, were based on important gardens in France and in Holland. The mansion, Castle bromwich Hall, can be seen to the right of the plan with an oval turning circle below it. On the right are a series of gardens created with geometrical patterns formed by their boundaries and internal planting. This was exactly the type of garden that many of Capability Brown's naturalistic gardens superceded. Castle Bromwich - since the owning family only lived there occasionally - survived remarkably untouched and is today still largely as depicted in the plan.