The Curious History of Your Home · NOISER

Lawnmowers

July 15, 2024·32 min·3 clips

A lavish garden party at Vaux-le-Vicomte directly led to the arrest of Louis XIV's finance minister and the creation of Versailles.

The episode opens in 1560s London on Moorfields common, where sheep kept the grass short for laundry drying and linen bleaching, since men were required by law to practice archery rather than play ball games. Ruth Goodman establishes that lawn history can be divided into two periods: before and after the mechanical mower, with sheep as the primary grass-cutting technology in the BTM era. Rights of common laws gave ordinary people access to grazing land held by lords of the manor, but much of this land was later enclosed by private landowners. The first private lawns were exclusive to the wealthy, requiring large teams of scythe-wielding labourers. The episode cuts to Vaux-le-Vicomte in 1661, where finance minister Nicolas Fouquet hosted a spectacular party for Louis XIV featuring Molière performing his latest play, a grand sloping lawn, and a fireworks display. The king's admiration turned to suspicion when he realised how wealthy Fouquet must be, and three weeks later Fouquet was arrested for embezzlement by D'Artagnan, captain of the musketeers. Louis then recruited Fouquet's landscape gardener André Le Nôtre to design Versailles, where the Tapis Vert — a 335-metre strip of lawn — symbolised the Sun King's endless power. At Versailles and English estates like Blenheim Palace, lawns were maintained with scythes by teams of up to 50 labourers working at dawn when dew made scything easier. The English landscape garden movement, led by Lancelot Capability Brown, popularised vast rolling lawns in the 18th century. The word lawn in its modern sense first appeared in English writing in 1733. Edwin Beard Budding, born in 1796, invented the mechanical lawnmower in 1829 after observing a rotary cutter trimming the nap from woollen cloth in a textile mill. His prototype, secretly tested at midnight in Stroud, required one person to pull and another to steer, and was loud enough to wake the neighbourhood. Early commercial mowers were pulled by horses and ponies wearing leather boots to avoid marking the turf, and London Zoo's first mower was pulled by a camel. James Sumner built the first steam-powered mower in 1893, and Ransoms produced the first petrol-powered mower in 1902. American designs became lighter and more accessible through the 20th century, facilitating the suburban lawn culture of mid-century Britain and the US. The 1994 story of Alvin Straight's six-week lawnmower journey inspired David Lynch's film The Straight Story. The episode closes by noting the return of animals as eco-mowers, including Google's herd of Californian goats and sheep used at UC Davis to improve student mental health.

As heard by us

A lawn story that begins as common ground and ends as a sign of power.

This episode treats lawns as more than neat grass. It starts in 1560 England, when Moorfields was still shared common ground on the edge of London, then moves on to Versailles and the English taste for rolling parkland.

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Why you'd press play

You want the hidden politics of a lawn that signaled rank and power.

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