Blog Lake District
← Back to Blog
The man who designed the world's oldest topiary garden is, by his own estate's admission, something of a mystery. Levens Hall has an ongoing public appeal for information about Guillaume Beaumont's early life — and after several centuries of research, genuinely not much has turned up.
What is known is that Beaumont was gardener to King James II and had a hand in designing the grounds at Hampton Court Palace — most likely its Wilderness Garden, since he wasn't formally the palace's head gardener. He's traditionally said to have trained under André Le Nôtre, the designer of the gardens at Versailles for Louis XIV, though even Levens Hall itself treats this as tradition rather than settled fact. Before working for the crown, records show he was employed by Colonel James Grahme as a nurseryman at Bagshot during James II's reign — which is almost certainly how the two men came to know each other well enough to rebuild a life together after 1688.
Whatever the uncertainty about his origins, Beaumont's life after 1689 is well documented. He worked at Levens from 1689 until 1712, and stayed on living there until his death in 1727 — nearly forty years at a single garden, an extraordinary span for any gardener of any era. A house was built for him at the southern end of the estate's stable range, and it has been used as the Head Gardener's residence ever since — a direct, physical line of continuity from Beaumont's own tenancy to the gardeners who tend the topiary today.
Beyond the topiary itself, Beaumont is credited with laying out the tree planting in Levens' deer park — still home to black fallow deer and the rare Bagot goats — and with creating what is thought to be the oldest recorded ha-ha in the country, around 1693. Taken together, it's a body of work that shaped not just a garden but an entire landscape, by a man whose own life before Levens remains, to this day, an open question.
Levens Hall’s garden history can be included in a bespoke gardens and heritage day.