By 1980 the local authority, Elmbridge Borough Council, had bought of Hamilton's original estate and the work of restoring the landscape garden and its many features could start. In the following year the Painshill Park Trust was founded as a registered charity with the remit "to restore Painshill as nearly as possible to Charles Hamilton's Original Concept of a Landscaped Garden for the benefit of the public." There is a wealth of 18th-century images of the main features of Painshill to help the process.