Gazebos|History

Alright fellow gazebo enthusiast. Time for a little history lesson, please open your text books to the page with the funny little monument thing in the garden. Gazebos have been with us for far longer than I would have ever imagined. My limited little brain often fails to see beyond the scope of America and 1776. Call it patriotism or ignorant bliss, needless to say all my years of not paying attention in school have paid off with a sense of excitement whenever I do decide to read up on a subject. Not that this topic was a likely candidate for any of my history classes. Anyhoo, lets take this topic by the keyboard and get her back on track.

Gazebos started out long long ago with Egyptian nobility. At first they were built along the tops of houses as a vantage point. Can you imagine if this were still the case? I bet we would hear a lot more about alcohol/gazebo related deaths. Thankfully some genius decided to put them on the ground for safety sake. The garden was the place of choice. Only the upper echelon had a private garden, so in the beginning they were the only ones who owned gazebos. I've read that the egyptians held a belief that their garden was sacred and would go with them in the afterlife. There have been many archeologists who have found murals of a gazebo garden in egyptian tombs. Some of the tombs date clear back to 1400 BC.

The word "gazebo" is believed to have been popularized around the 1700's by a man by the name of William Halfpenny. You may recall him and his cousin Bill "Fullnickle". Ok, lame I know but I'm sorry I just couldn't resist. Anyways, he was the author of a book called New Designs for Chinese Temples that came out in 1752. I suppose I should note also that in the east gazebos were set up to look like small temples. The Romans and the Greeks were known to have them and they created theirs out of marble more often than not. Ok, back to the word itself. They are not entirely sure, but they believe Halfpenny may have come up with it by taking the English word "gaze" and adding the latin "ebo" which means I shall. So the word would have meant "I shall gaze" This makes sense that they were initially on rooftops and in the gardens sights that you took in were a huge part of the experience.

Now I don't know about you, but it sounds like something this tried and true to still be around after all of these years has to be a good thing. If you have had any experience I'm sure you can attest to the fact that they are. We still use them today for the same thing people did back then. Peace and tranquility. A quiet retreat from the ever increasing burden of information overload. Time to ponder, gather, and reflect upon our thoughts. Now go on reward yourself and make your own history with gazebos.