Painshill

Painshill (formally Painshill Park) is a restored, 18th-century English park and landscape garden in Cobham, Surrey, England. It was created between 1738 and 1773 by the owner, Charles Hamilton, from an area of heathland and woodland. Painshill is laid out as a series of scenes, crafted by combining architectural features with trees and shrubs, many of which are non-native species. Several of the surviving follies are listed in their own right, including the Gothic Tower, at the western end of the park, and the Gothic Temple, which overlooks the northern part of the lake. The Grotto, the largest in England, is decorated with crystalline mineral stones, including quartz, feldspar and Blue John.

In designing Painshill, Hamilton was influenced by 17th-century landscape artists, whose works he had encountered on Grand Tours in continental Europe. Instead of trying to replicate specific artworks, Hamilton used the techniques of landscape painting to create scenes with contrasting emotional tones – from the solemnity of the dark evergreens surrounding the Mausoleum, to the brighter trees and flowers at the Temple of Bacchus. Advocates of the Picturesque were complimentary of Hamilton's work, particularly the hillier, western half of the park, which Horace Walpole likened to a "kind of Alpine scene". International visitors to the park and garden included John Adams, the future American president, who wrote that "Paines Hill is the most striking piece of art that I have yet seen."

Hamilton borrowed heavily to finance his work and was forced to sell Painshill in 1773. The estate passed through a series of private owners until the Second World War, when it was requisitioned for military use. In the late 1940s, it was divided into lots and parts were used for commercial forestry and pig farming. The architectural features began to decay and much of the land became overgrown. Concerns over the condition of the park were voiced in the following decades, leading to the purchase of over 150 acres (61 hectares) by Elmbridge Borough Council in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In June 1984, around 212 acres (86 ha) of Hamilton's original estate was designated a Grade I Park and Garden on the register of historic parks and gardens maintained by Historic England.

Restoration of Painshill began in the early 1980s, with the aim of reinstating Hamilton's original design wherever possible. Surviving architectural features, including the Gothic Temple and Ruined Abbey, were restored, and those that had disappeared completely, such as the Turkish Tent and the Hermitage, were reconstructed. The part of the park owned by the borough council was reopened to the public on summer weekends from mid-May 1989 and seven-days-a-week from April 1997. In January 1999, the park was awarded a Europa Nostra medal for its "exemplary restoration", and in May 2006, the plantation of non-native trees on the Chinese Peninsula was awarded "national collection status" by the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens. Since 2000, Painshill has been used as a filming location for the feature films Dorian Gray and Suffragette and for the television series Black Mirror and Bridgerton.