The Temple of the Four Winds, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire

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Castle Howard has extensive and diverse gardens. There is a large formal garden immediately behind the house. The house is prominently situated on a ridge and this was exploited to create an English landscape park, which opens out from the formal garden and merges with the park.

Two major garden buildings are set into this landscape: the Temple of the Four Winds at the end of the garden, and the Mausoleum in the park. There is also a lake on either side of the house. There is woodland garden, Ray Wood, and the walled garden contains decorative rose and flower gardens.

The Temple of the Four Winds

In 1724 Vanbrugh sent Lord Carlisle some designs for a pavilion for the south-east corner of Ray Wood, and shortly afterwards he was pleased to learn that the Earl had at last chosen the Temple with four Porticos.

Known originally as the Temple of Diana, the building, a cube with dome and porticos, is modelled in part on Andrea Palladio's famous 16th century Villa Rotonda in Vicenza. By the time of Vanbrugh's death, in 1726, the Temple was unfinished and another ten years were to pass before the interiors were finally decorated with scagliola in 1738 by the stuccoist Francesco Vassalli.

Beneath the temple is a cellar where servants would have stored and prepared food before serving it to polite company above. Used as a place for refreshment and reading, it commands impressive views.

The temple was restored in 1955 as one of the first of the major restoration projects undertaken by George Howard after the Second World War.

The statue on the right of picture is a copy of the Borghese Gladiator