The designer of this suggestive little romantic palace was James Knowles Jr. and it was built in 1858 on the initiative of Francis Cook, Viscount Monserrate, being one of the most interesting examples of Sintra Romanticism. A work in the Romantic-Orientalist spirit, with its great circular tower, bulbous cupolas and exotic decoration, the building recalls in particular the famous Brighton Pavilion of Nash, and English Romantic architecture.However, as José Augusto França says, "Monserrate has a somewhat different scenographic sense, based on a greater wealth of archaeological details", constituted by its inspirational roots which - via English sources - are grafted on to the Moghul architecture. A unique case of Romanticism in Portugal.
William BeckfordMonserrateBrief HistoryThe garden of Monserrate in Sintra, Portugal is considered one of the most importantEnglish landscape gardens beyond the shores of the British Isles. It was founded in the18th century by Gerard De Visme, a wealthy and cultured merchant, who had made hisfortune from trade with Brazil. The house was briefly occupied by William Beckfordand quickly fell into ruin, an event cruelly recorded by the poet Lord Byron :“Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan,Beneath yon mountain's ever-beauteous brow ;But now, as if a thing unblest by man,Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou!Here giant weeds a passage scarce allowTo halls deserted, portals gaping wide,Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, howVain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied;Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide."Lord Byron came to Sintra in July 1809. He placed Monserrate firmly on the touristmap. His moralizing rhymes described the wrecked house and garden as a directconsequence of the wanton lifestyle of its former resident. Henceforth all Englishvisitors to Lisbon would make the pilgrimage to Sintra to see the famous beauty spot.Countless travelogues, written by well-to-do trippers and military men stationed inPortugal after the Napoleonic wars, describe the slow demise of the once luxuriousproperty.In 1841, one such tourist became so enchanted with the property that he resolved to buyit, no easy task in a country still bound by aristocratic laws of entailment. Francis Cook,returning from a Grand Tour of Southern Europe and the Middle East, had landed inLisbon, fallen in love with the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and according to familytradition, discovered Monserrate whilst honeymooning in Sintra. Cook was the son ofWilliam Cook, wholesale draper, and heir to a fortune of over two million pounds.From the outset, he clearly understood the enormous potential of Monserrate as alandscape garden. Although unable to purchase the estate until 1856, he began planningthe grounds as early as 1852, presumably under some sort of leasing arrangement. Theoldest exotic tree in the garden was planted at this time: Araucaria heterophylla.Building works to restore the house were directed by James T. Knowles, FRIBA, andcompleted in 1860. The gardens were laid out at the same time according to Cook’s owninstruction. It is said that over 2000 men were employed on the enterprise.Both house and garden are minutely described in a 300 page epic of rhyming coupletsentitled Fairy Life in Fairyland, written by Dr. Thomas Cargill. An amateur botanist,Cargill had quite an influence on the early development of the garden. He was widelytravelled, and the poem displays his knowledge of Australian and South African flora.The Cook family remained at Monserrate for four generations, however the estate wasfinally sold in the 1940’s, first to a speculator and then passed to the Portuguese State.The once magnificent gardens slowly declined until following the 1974 revolution theybecame once more, virtually abandoned.The Friends of Monserrate were founded in 1992 as an independent volunteerorganisation devoted to the promotion and restoration of the estate. In 1995 Monserratewas inscribed, along with the cultural landscape of Sintra, as part of the UNESCO listof World Heritage. In 2000 the Portuguese government established the Parques deSintra, a public company devoted to the restoration and management of cultural heritagein Sintra, which since that time has run Monserrate gardens and undertaken a series ofrestoration projects for the house and garden.The Rose Garden: history and recent works“Rounding this blaze of glory ressurect,Tread we our lower Lawn, soft carpet green,“With Juniper and Cypress all bedecked,And Rose, and Rhododendron rich between,“And fair Camellia ; - now a landscape scene“Romantic, openeth to our gaze : the Lawns“Do seem to join continuous, and there dawns“Sudden the Fairy Palace on our sight”Recent works at Monserrate have restored much of the spatial quality of the gardensthat surround the palace. In modern memory the house has perched precariously at thetop of a steep corridor of lawn: seemingly somewhat overbalanced and awkward. Thelawns that now join continuous from below the music-room-tower to the Great Lawn,sweep down through the newly cleared rose garden to provide an ample setting for thebuilding. Once again the Palace is allowed to sit comfortably on the hilltop.The history of the rose garden is not as well known as other parts of Monserrate, but itis clear that the garden existed from the earliest interventions of Francis Cook. Thereare sporadic references to the Rose Garden in garden descriptions right up to 1929, thefinal flowering of Monserrate, long before the slow decline that has brought it to ourdays.The rose is a flower full of symbolic value, flower of love, flower of the English nation,but for Cook the rose was the Queen of Flowers, and represented all that the gardens ofthe Orient could bring to his exotic creation:“And flowery land of ‘Old Cathay’“Reach we oft by break of day,“And anon its sweets inhale,“Borne on the musk-opressèd gale,“And catch the spicy airs that fan“The languid shores of fair Japan,“Then in a sea-shell’s depth we lie,“Skimming the azure floods, and hie“To Indus’ banks, or Ganges shores,“Where brindled tiger sullen roars :“Nor pause we long ; and lo! appear“Our own loved gardens of Cashmere,“Where I my fresh musk-roses twine,“Fresh fragrant and divine!”Clearly this was no ordinary rose garden. Heavy with fragrance and redolent of the FarEast, the roses of Cook’s garden were as charged with mystery as the alabaster screensof his palace or the tiger-skin rugs spread in its halls. The roses and little box hedges ofthe Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette had no place in this garden, Cook sought torecreate an atmosphere he had known as a young man through powerful floralassociation:“Mine are the gorgeous climes as erst,“Where my frolic youth was nurst,“Eastern climes where bending glows,“The crimson of the blushing rose.”By the second half of the nineteenth century the plant explorers and rose breeders hadtogether radically altered the range of roses available to wealthy landowners in search ofnovelty. Many of these roses had been produced by hybridising species obtained inChina and India and were cultivated with enormous care in the great glasshouses of theera. Monserrate offered a unique opportunity to cultivate these new wonders in theopen air. A new type of rose garden was needed. The site was chosen carefully: the soil,a perfect loamy clay, lying within a warm sheltered valley between ancient Cork Treesand newly planted pines.“But, Fairies all! beholdAgain that field of flowers,“Pink, damask, white and gold ;”A field of flowers: traces of flowerbeds cut into the lawn can be discerned even today.Clearing work carried out before works began was conducted in such a manner so as notto destroy any of this evidence. A detailed topographic survey was conducted. Itappears that these beds were cut into the grass and were connected to a network ofearthenware pipes that supplied water to the Great Lawn above. Long sweeping walksdivided the sloping beds. Aside from constructions related to the water system, no otherbuilt structures have come to light.The works to date have brought a considerable area of long-abandoned rose garden backunder firm control. The clearance of 3 – 4 metre high brambles that had replaced theroses is somewhat ironic since the genus Rubus to which they belong is closely relatedto the rose. Francis Burt, Monserrate’s first Master Gardener described hownightingales lived in the dense shrubberies of the garden. Any temporary loss of habitatfrom this clearance will soon be recovered once the great rose-beds are re-established.Surviving roses amongst the brambles have been carefully marked and preserved. Onehas been identified as ‘Cloth of Gold’ – referred to in Monserrate literature as‘Chromatella’.During 2008/2009 the first 125 rose bushes were planted: Chinas, Teas and Noisettesimported from Peter Beales, UK. They have successfully passed the exceptionally longhot summer of 2009, cared for by the gardeners of Parques de Sintra. It is hoped thatduring the forth-coming planting season another 500 rose bushes will be planted. Theseare to be obtained from specialist European rose growers such as John Hook and PaolaLungaroni.In addition to the historic rose cultivars grown in the new garden it is hoped that thegarden will come to showcase the hybrids of Rosa gigantea, first hybridised by HenriCayeux in 1906 at the Botanic Garden of Lisbon. The celebrated Belle de Portugal isthe most famous example. The modern gigantea hybrids of Indian rosarian, ViruViraragavan, will also be planted as an example of the continuation of the contributionthat the genes of this gigantic species have made to rose breeding.It is important to relate the history of the area surrounding the rose garden. More thanhalf of the garden of Monserrate is missing. The recently replanted Mexico and theRose Garden are intimately linked by a ridge top path with panoramic views of thesurrounding landscape. Clearing these areas has restored to Monserrate a dimension andgrandeur that had been all but lost.Gerald LuckhurstHorticulturist, Landscape ArchitectMonserrate, 18th October 2009
The Cook Family
