Capability Brown, the most famous of all English landscape gardeners, moved mountains and flooded valleys to create his illusions of idyllic pastoral vistas – but he was staggeringly well paid for his efforts, earning more than the equivalent of £500m, new research on his only surviving account book has revealed.
The neat columns of figures in the small narrow book reveal that during his most productive period, when he is estimated to have transformed more than 500,000 acres of land in at least 250 sites for wealthy clients including the king and six prime ministers, he earned vast amounts of money.
Out of the £500m he had to pay the contractors who actually did the work, but it still left him a very wealthy man.
The Guardian: Research shows Capability Brown earned equivalent of £500m
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