Sir John Vanbrugh is celebrated today as one of England's finest country house architects. His masterpieces include palatial private homes such as Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace, greatly admired by any enthusiast of English Baroque architecture. However, his work extended far beyond such projects, and included a remarkable variety of temples, belvederes, pyramids and many other features which he designed for the gardens and parks of the estates at which he worked.

The originality of such work has shown that Vanbrugh played a crucial role in the development of the eighteenth-century English garden, and this unique and fascinating book uses the fruits of new research to assess just what contribution this great man made to our heritage.

CHRISTOPHER RIDGWAY is head curator at Castle Howard, chair of the Yorkshire Country House Partnership, and adjunct professor at the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates at Maynooth University. He is currently completing a book on Castle Howard. ROBERT WILLIAMS is an arts books editor based in Sussex and is currently completing his own book-length study of the early eighteenth-century poet Richard Savage.