Ha-ha! That is a surprise
QUESTION Did Capability Brown invent the ha-ha, which is usually attributed to the French? The ha-ha is a sunken fence or wall followed by a ditch found in the formal gardens of grand country houses that became popular in Britain in the mid-18th century. Its function is practical and aesthetic.
The ha-ha prevented grazing animals on large estates from gaining access to the formal gardens adjoining the house, while giving a continuous vista to create the illusion that garden and landscape were unbroken.
horace Walpole, in his essay On Modern Gardening (1770), attributed the invention to pioneering landscape gardener Charles Bridgman (1690–1738), who created Britain’s first ha-ha for Lord Cobham at Stowe, Bucks in 1719: ‘But the capital stroke, the leading step to all that followed was (I believe the first though was Bridgman’s) the destruction of walls for boundaries, and the invention of fosses — an attempt then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them ha! has! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk.’
Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-1783), Britain’s most famous (and prolific) landscape gardener, was certainly responsible for popularising the ha-ha. Many of his most famous gardens feature the structure, including Sherbourne Castle, Burghley house, harewood house, Chatsworth hall and Blenheim Palace.
however the structure was almost certainly French, the term being attested in toponyms in New France from 1686 (as seen today in Saint-Louis-du-ha! ha!).
It was a feature of the gardens of the Chateau de Meudon, near Paris, before 1700. In France, the name ha-ha is traditionally attributed to Louis, Grand Dauphin, who on encountering the feature at Meudon, proclaimed: ‘ha-ha!’
The technical innovation was presented in Dezallier d’Argenville’s La Theorie et La Pratique Du Jardinage (1709), which the architect John James (1712) translated into english:
‘Grills of iron are very necessary ornaments in the lines of walks, to extend the view, and to show the country to advantage.
‘At present we frequently make thoroughviews, called Ah, Ah, which are openings in the walls, without grills, to the very level of the walks, with a large and deep ditch at the foot of them, lined on both sides to sustain the earth, and prevent the getting over; which surprises the eye upon coming near it, and makes one laugh, ha! ha!, from where it takes its name.’
amy Dancer, Chard, Somerset. QUESTION In the mid-Seventies when I worked in Iraq, outside the entrance to Baghdad railway station was a steam locomotive. Is it still there? ONe of the causes of World War I was the German policy of ‘penetration Pacifique’: colonisation by the back door.
A visible aspect of this was the construction of rail lines throughout the Persian Gulf. The Baghdad Terminus was completed in 1912. Most of the rolling stock for the lines was by German firms, notably henchel, Borsig and Maffei, and by 1914 the Gulf was home to 200 steam locos and 3,500 freight or passenger cars.
The locomotive on the plinth, Baghdad Railway no.405, was built by Borsig of Berlin as works no.8480 of 1912. It was originally an 0-6-0T, no.5.
Baghdad Central Station was built by the British in 1954 and was considered the ‘Jewel of Baghdad’ for travellers of the day. It offered telegraph services, a bank, post office, shopping, a saloon, restaurant and even an office with printing presses, which still prints the train tickets.
The Borsig was decommissioned at that time and placed on the plinth shortly afterwards and has somehow managed to survive the turmoil of two Gulf Wars. Grand Central Station reopened after the war in 2008 and functions in a limited capacity.
Simon Baines, Worcester. QUESTION We are told the warm weather last winter was due to El Nino, and the coming months will be unusually cold because of its opposite, La Nina. Is one of these always operative, or are there ‘neutral’ years? ThIS weather phenomenon is known correctly as el Nino-Southern Oscillation (eNSO). eNSO is one of the most important climate phenomena on earth due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which, in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the globe.
Before La Nina was even recognised, South American fisherman noticed the intermittent warming of coastal waters which they called el Nino (nino is Spanish for a boy-child), in connection with Christmas when the event often began.
In the early 20th century Sir Gilbert Walker discovered the Southern Oscillation — the accompanying atmospheric component brought on by largescale changes in sea-level pressure across Indonesia and the tropical Pacific, though it wasn’t until the late Sixties that ocean and atmospheric changes were connected and the hybrid term eNSO was born.
eNSO has three states. el Nino refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific.
La Nina episodes represent periods of below-average sea surface temperatures across the east-central equatorial Pacific. These phases usually last about 12 months, but may be longer.
The two opposite phases require certain changes in ocean and atmosphere because eNSO is a coupled climate phenomenon. The longest phase is thus correctly called the ‘neutral’ state, where sea surface temperatures are close to average for two to seven years. Dr ian Smith, Cambridge. QUESTION In 1988, support act Guns N’ Roses famously upstaged the main act, Aerosmith. Are there other occasions when this has happened? FuRTheR to the earlier answers, more than 30 years ago I took my Irish girlfriend to see The Bachelors at the Woolwich Odeon. They were dreadful. Out of tune with thin, reedy voices. One clearly couldn’t sing at all. Yet when I looked around, the audience were lapping it up.
Far better to my mind was the support act, all sisters, good-looking, singing and dancing. They were great, though I’d never heard of them. They were The Nolans.
My girlfriend must have enjoyed it. We are still together.
a. g. Williams, london SE2.
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