Historic Earthworks for the Playground

So I mentioned in the previous post about the Haye Playground by Mortar and Pestle that its snail-like forms have historic antecedents, which I did a series of posts about some time ago at my garden history blog (here, and here).   Like all turf installations, they require maintenance but are relatively easy to construct for the playground, and a nice way to add historical context.    

The spiraling snail mount was a favorite of the Elizabethans,  included in an entertainment staged for Elizabeth I at Elvetham in 1591 in which the snail mount 'resembleth a monster', and was fired upon with cannon (see it there in the lower right corner)

Sir Francis Bacon's garden (c. 1620) had 'in the very middle, a fair mount, with three ascents, and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast; which I would have to be perfect circles...and the whole mount to be thirty foot high'.   The snail mount was was a logical response to the desire to view a flat garden from a high overlook, and its wide, spiraling paths a practical way for heavily skirted ladies to ascend on a gentle incline.

The best surviving example is at Lyveden New Bield in Northamptonshire, where twin snail mounts arise from a moated landscape surrounding Thomas Tresham's haunting, never-finished Trinitarian retreat.  (Highly, highly recommended for a visit.)

The horticulture students at Cornell University made a smaller construct...I particularly love the idea of a group of people 'walking in' the spiral to the top.

 

An even earlier model is the medieval turf seat (there's a good historical overview at the Met garden blog), which was sometimes just a shaped area of turf, with or without a seat back, but could also be framed into the seat shape by wattles or boards or masonry.  

There's been a resurgence of interest in these 'green sofas' in the last few years....instructions for making a 'sprout couch' can be found at ReadyMade magazine, and there is a commercial kit for making a turf 'chair'.  But I prefer simpler, less literal constructs, like this one from the Goresbrook park in Dangenham:

Or these by environmental artist Angela Ciotti from a 1983 installation in Pennsylvania:

And my favorite is the idyllic example painted by Ilya Repin in the waning, dappled days of the Russian elite.

Also note some earthworks previously featured on the blog:  Maya Lin's wavefield, and  the playhills of Dani Karavan and Parklife London. 

Much more could be done with turf on playgrounds, so take this as inspiration!