Smooth lawns, glassy pools, cool garden temples, mysterious woodland glades, evocative statuary ... the 18th-century English landscape garden offers a transcendent vision of Arcadia, a world of rich escapism peopled by gods and goddesses, young lovers and dairymaids, poets and philosophers.

This sumptuous, beautifully photographed volume celebrates this quintessentially British creation, arguably its greatest artform, taking you on a tour of 20 of the finest surviving gardens, including:

• Studley Royal (Yorkshire), a dreamy valley garden which culminates with a view down and across the ruins of a Cistercian abbey
• Stowe (Buckinghamshire), the great politically motivated garden of its day, boasting the ensemble masterpiece that is William Kent’s Elysian Fields
• Chiswick House (London), Lord Burlington’s experiment in neoclassical architecture
• Petworth (Sussex) – of ‘Capability’ Brown, who eschewed the symbolism of earlier generations but created instead his own powerful vision of pastoral Arcadia
• Hawkstone Park (Shropshire), designed to elicit a thrill of fear in visitors as they traverse rocky precipices and encounter live hermits

Including much new research and specially commissioned photographs, this is a book to dive into and be transported to an idyllic dream realm.