How natural is natural

The 6th Earl of Coventry made two men superstars. When the Earl inherited Croome Court in 1750, he wanted an estate makeover. It took over 50 years so it wasn't a made for TV kind of makeover. He hired two little known men, Lancelot Brown, to do the outside remodelling and landscaping and Robert Adam to do the interiors. Because of their work at Croome Court both men became as famous in their day as our current superstars. And their fame has endured over 250 years. Lancelot "Capability" Brown is revered as the first English garden and people from all over the world come to see Adams' beautiful rooms in many great houses. Before Croome Court came into the hands of the National Trust, the family sold the tapestry room completely, from floor to ceiling and everything in between, to the Metropolitan Museum of New York . The Museum really, really wanted a Robert Adam room. The inside of Croome Court is empty. The Trust only got the house last year. But the garden has been in their hands for about 10 and they have been restoring it back to how Brown laid it out. Capability reacted against the formal garden structures that had come over from France and Italy. He wanted the natural English countryside to be the focus of his landscape designs. At Croome, in order to create this natural look, he demolished a medieval church, designed another one on a rise to be "more pleasing to the eye", relocated the village cottages to various places at least 5 miles away as they "were not pleasing to the eye". In that day and age when people never left their villages, it would have been like being relocated to the moon. He diverted the river and dug an ornamental lake and serpentine canal. These were fed by hundred of miles of brick line tunnels. Trees and plants were brought in from around the world. So how natural is natural? And when you stroll around today, you do think "How beautifully English".