English Park — the first landscape park in Peterhof

English Park is the first landscape park in Peterhof. The park covers an area of 173.4 hectares (the largest park in Peterhof). It was designed for Catherine II by the English garden master James Meaders. Currently, it is in a semi-neglected state and is used as a place for "picnics."

A significant part of the park is occupied by bodies of water: the English Pond, the Trinity Creek, partially the Peterhof Canal and creek, as well as many others, including unnamed bodies of water integrated into the Peterhof water intake system.

The English Pond, stretching from south to north, with islets and indented shores, was created in 1720 when the Trinity Creek, flowing through a large ravine west of the Lower Park, was dammed by an earthen dam. Later, the pond was connected to the Ropsha Canal. Water from the English Pond passes through a system of locks into the Upper Garden Canal, and then to the western side of the Grand Cascade.

In 1734, the forested land surrounding the pond was allocated for the establishment of a menagerie. Wild boars were kept here for hunting. In the 1770s, under Catherine II, the Boar Menagerie was removed, and one of the first English landscape parks in St. Petersburg appeared in its place. The redevelopment of the area was led by D. Quarenghi and J. Meaders, who decided to use the natural contours of the water body as the compositional center of the emerging park.

The pond was framed between two perspectives running through the park from north to south. Perpendicular to these roads, from east to west, runs a third perspective.

The laying out of alleys and planting of trees and shrubs were carried out by gardeners Meaders, Gavrilov, Timofeev, and Winkelson.

Architect Giacomo Quarenghi built the English Palace in the park at the end of the 18th century; only ruins remain (https://reveal.world/story/rasstrelyannyj-shedevr-kvarengi-anglijskij-dvorets). It was erected for Catherine II as a house of seclusion.

In August 1781, according to Quarenghi’s design, the Birch House was built in the park in the traditional Russian style.

Its log walls were covered on the outside with birch bark, and the roof was thatched; however, behind the modest facade were elegant interiors of the living room, an oval hall, and six small rooms with mirrors, exquisite ornamental painting, and parquet floors. It was the first house in Russia where curved mirrors were installed. It burned down during the Great Patriotic War.

The garden and park architecture is also attributed to Quarenghi. The park had 11 bridges, variously decorated either as ruins or fenced with deliberately roughly hewn boulders, balustrades, and unrooted tree trunks. After Catherine II’s death, Paul I, who sought to undo everything his mother had done, ordered the demolition of unfinished pavilions in the English Park, and the stone was used for the construction of the Roman Fountains, the pedestal in the Whale Pool (Lower Park), and so on.

During the Great Patriotic War, the front line of defense of the Oranienbaum bridgehead passed through the park territory, and all buildings were destroyed.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Park_(Peterhof)