Beckford’s Ride: The Reconstruction of Historic Landscape

Abstract

William Beckford (1760–1844) built a lookout tower and landscape garden in Bath, now almost completely vanished beneath subsequent buildings. Referring to archival documents and a few traces on the ground, we used an advanced video-game engine to reconstruct the landscape, architecture and planting as it was around 1840, for an interactive installation in the Beckford Tower Museum. Bespoke software was developed to handle the wide views and rich planting. The resulting virtual environment succeeds in relating the lost landscape to the intentions and taste of its creator, and to surviving fragments in the real world. It has enhanced the museum visitor’s experience in several ways.