Retaining Walls To The Cold Bath, Octagon Pool And Watery Walk

ROUSHAM ROUSHAM PARK GARDENS SP4724 14/230 Retaining walls to The Cold 27/08/57 Bath, Octagon Pool and Watery Walk (Formerly listed under The Cold Bath and small adjoining pavilion...) GV II* Retaining walls. c.1738-40, by William Kent. Squared and coursed limestone. Surround octagonal Cold Bath with ashlar rim and larger Octagon Pond in Venus' Vale. Serpentine stream of channelled limestone runs from spring near Temple of Echo (q.v.) through Cold Bath to Octagon Pond. The serpentine stream is of great importance as the earliest example of the Rococo "line of beauty" applied to garden design and is the embodiment of Kent's dictum that "Nature abhors a straight line": it is known as both the Watery Walk and The Rill. Part of the landscape gardens laid out by William Kent between 1733-40. (Rousham Park is included in the H.B.M.C. Register of Parks and Gardens at Grade I; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: pp745-6; M.I. Wilson, William Kent 1685-1748, 1984, p214)

Listing NGR: SP4775524500