Who Popularised The Modern Driveway?

The home and its surroundings have evolved based not only on changing trends and the availability of materials but also on the needs of the people who live in them.

The driveway is no exception, and whilst it is difficult to think of a home with a front garden that does not have space for a river of gravel leading up to the garage and the front door, this was not always the case.

Whilst finding the origin of the invention of drives and patios can be a difficult exercise, there is one man who arguably did more than any other to make drives the standard for houses of all shapes and sizes.

Lancelot Brown, known by many as “Capability” Brown due to his common refrain that claimed a garden or landscape had the capability for improvement, was one of the most prolific gardeners and landscape architects during a period of tremendous change for their design.

He believed in a simple and relatively subtle approach that embraced the natural beauty of the parks and country houses that he worked in, to the point that his obituary opined that he copied nature so closely that his landscaping was often mistaken as such.

One of the keys to this was a staged, stepped approach to his design and a mix of naturalistic construction and authoritarian controlled nature.

The best example of the former was his common use of the sweeping drive in an age that predated the motor car, turning what was traditionally seen as a mere necessity for guests to reach the estate itself into a self-directed tour of the estate itself.

By extension, as these landscapes were intended to reflect the particular interests of the owner of the estate, they created a fascinating journey in themselves, one captured in a particularly vivid passage of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

As design trends tend to spread from the top down, these ideas would later lead to the wider adoption of the drive as a standard part of the British home.