Benjamin Hyett (1708–1762) of Painswick House, Gloucestershire, was an eighteenth-century garden creator.
He was born 17 December 1708, the eldest son of Charles Hyett (d. 1738), a leading citizen of Gloucester. [1] He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford [2] and the Inner Temple, becoming a barrister in 1731. [3] In 1733 his father bought an estate in Painswick and built a house as a country residence. [4] In 1741 he unsuccessfully stood as MP for Gloucester in the Tory interest. [3] Shortly after [5] he married Frances (d. 1768), the only child of Sir Thomas Snell, a London merchant who had settled in Upton St Leonards. [6] [7] He died without any surviving children in 1762 and his estate passed to his brother Nicholas. [3]
By 1740 Hyett had created a Rococo garden at Marybone House, Gloucester, incorporating an eclectic range of features and buildings including a pagoda in approximately 6 acres. [8] [9]
A few years later he created a slightly larger garden at his Painswick house, known then as Buenos Aires. [8] It incorporated a statue of Pan by Jan van Nost, which presided over the garden. [10] The main features of the garden were preserved into the 20th century and have now been preserved and opened to the public as the Painswick Rococo Garden. [11]
Visual records of both gardens when newly created were preserved in paintings by Thomas Robins the Elder. [12] [13]