Description of the great Enville Fountain
Description from 1857 of the Great Fountain at Enville
Describing the performance of fountains is not easy. Most often times, words do not do justice to the spectacle of falling and gushing water. As with art, each person will interpret a fountain or waterfall differently from another. This has been a challenge through history, and continues to this day. Capturing a coaxing precise performance from water has been a significant part of fountain design, particularly since the Renaissance period. The dramatic water effects found in nature have inspired a form of many monumental fountains. In 1857, the English artist E. Adveno Brooke described his memorable experience of the great fountain in the gardens of Enville in Staffordshire, England:
As we stood admiring the beauty and tranquility of the scene, a bubbling sound of water, at first gentle and gathering force by degrees, broke out and we beheld the commencement of one of the most beautiful aquatic displays it is possible to conceive. This, the large fountain, is on a level with the surface of the lake, and composed of five jets, the central one throwing a column of water 150 feet high; the supply being obtained from a large reservoir on the hill, to which it is first pumped by the united action of two engines, each of them 30 horse power. The day was one of the most favorable, as the slightest breeze spoils the regularity of the display, and the clear blue sky, into which towered the conical head of the massive cloud, with the crystal stream darting across it, but distinctly out of the most beautiful and effective features of the fountain. In the course of a few minutes it had reached its culminating point, leaping like a bright and joyous thing of life high into the air, and falling around and absolute clouds of the most brilliant and varied color. We stood watching the superb spectacle until, at a given signal, it gradually sunk, as if tired with its exertions; the bosom of the lake caught its last burbling ripple, and all was still.