Stourhead was built in the 1740s by wealthy banker Henry Hoare. He bagan by building dams on several streams to raise a lake, around which he then planted trees. He arranged buildings and trees to form a series of pictures, of views, along a serpentine walk. He added a Grotto for private reflection, as well as a Pantheon copied by "Burlington Harry" Flitchcroft which appears in a Claude painting owned by Hoare and now in the National Gallery in London. The Pantheon houses statues of Hercules by Rysbrack , and the Latin inscription establishes parallels between Aeneas (who sought a new home in Rome) and Hoare (who sought a new home in Wiltshire).
Stourhead, Note the Neo-Palladian Design
Rear of Stourhead, Overlooking Landscape Garden
Neo-Palladian Bridge
Temple of Flora
Pantheon
Pantheon
Gothic Cottage
River God in Grotto