Chapter I: Part 1

SOME ENGLISH GARDENS

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. GEORGE E. B. WREY]

SOME ENGLISH GARDENS

AFTER DRAWINGS BY
GEORGE S. ELGOOD, R.I.
WITH NOTES BY
GERTRUDE JEKYLL

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1904

PREFACE

The publication of this collection of reproductions of water-colour drawings would have been impossible without the willing co-operation of the owners of the originals. Special acknowledgment is therefore due to them for their kindness and courtesy, both in consenting to such reproduction and in sparing the pictures from their walls. On pages xi. and xii. is given a full list of the pictures, together with the names of the owners to whom we are so greatly indebted.

We have also had the valuable assistance of Mr. Marcus B. Huish, of The Fine Art Society, who has taken the greatest interest in the work from its inception.

G. S. E.

G. J.

CONTENTS

_Page_

Brockenhurst 1 Hollyhocks at Blyborough 5 Great Tangley Manor 8 Bulwick Hall 11 Bramham 15 Melbourne 18 Berkeley Castle 23 Summer Flowers 26 The Yew Alley, Rockingham 33 Brympton 36 Balcaskie 39 Crathes Castle 42 Kellie Castle 47 Hardwick 52 Montacute 55 Ramscliffe 58 Levens 63 Campsey Ashe 67 Cleeve Prior 70 Condover 74 Speke Hall 76 Garden Roses 79 Penshurst 82 Brickwall 87 Stone Hall, Easton 90 The Deanery Garden, Rochester 93 Compton Wynyates 96 Palmerstown 99 St. Anne’s, Clontarf 101 Auchincruive 104 Yew Arbour: Lyde 107 Autumn Flowers 110 Mynthurst 115 Abbey Leix 118 Michaelmas Daisies 121 Arley 125 Lady Coventry’s Needlework 129

ILLUSTRATIONS

_From Pictures in
the possession of_ _To face
page_

Phlox Mr. George E. B. Wrey _Frontispiece_ The Terrace, Brockenhurst Mr. G. N. Stevens 2 Brockenhurst: The Garden Gate Miss Radcliffe 4 Blyborough: Hollyhocks Mr. C. E. Freeling 6 The Pergola, Great Tangley Mr. Wickham Flower 8 Bulwick: Autumn Lord Henry Grosvenor 11 Bulwick: The Gateway Lord Henry Grosvenor 12 The Pool, Bramham Sir James Whitehead, Bart 16 Melbourne Mr. W. V. R. Fane 18 Melbourne: Amorini Mr. J. W. Ford 20 The Lower Terrace, Berkeley Castle Mr. Albert Wright 24 Orange Lilies and Larkspur Mr. George C Bompas 26 White Lilies and Yellow Monkshood Mr. Herbert D. Turner 28 Purple Campanula Miss Beatrice Hall 30 The Yew Alley, Rockingham Miss Willmott 34 The Gateway, Brympton Mr. Edwin Clephan 36 The Apollo, Balcaskie Miss Bompas 40 The Yew Walk, Crathes Mr. Charles P. Rowley 42 Crathes Mr. George C. Bompas 44 Crathes: Phlox Mrs. Croft 46 Kellie Castle Mr. Arthur H. Longman 48 The Forecourt, Hardwick Mr. Aston Webb 52 Montacute: Sunflowers Mr. E. C. Austen Leigh 56 Ramscliffe: Orange Lilies and Monkshood Mr. C. E. Freeling 58 Ramscliffe: Larkspur Miss Kensit 60 Levens Major Longfield 63 Levens: Roses and Pinks Mrs. Archibald Parker 65 The Yew Hedge, Campsey Ashe Mr. H. W. Search 68 The Twelve Apostles, Cleeve Prior Sir Frederick Wigan 70 Cleeve Prior: Sunflowers Mr. James Crofts Powell 72 Condover: The Terrace Steps Miss Austen Leigh 74 Speke Hall Mr. George S. Elgood 76 “Viscountess Folkestone” Mr. R. Clarke Edwards 80 “Gloire de Dijon,” Penshurst Sir Reginald Hanson, Bart. 82 Penshurst: The Terrace Steps Mr. Frederick Greene 84 Brickwall, Northiam Mr. R. A. Oswald 88 Stone Hall, Easton: The Friendship Garden The Countess of Warwick 90 The Deanery Garden, Rochester Mr. G. A. Tonge 94 Compton Wynyates Mr. George S. Elgood 96 China Roses and Lavender, Palmerstown Mrs. Kennedy-Erskine 99 St. Anne’s, Clontarf Miss Mannering 102 Auchincruive Mr. R. A. Oswald 104 The Yew Arbour, Lyde Mr. George E. B. Wrey 107 Phlox and Daisy Lady Mount-Stephen 112 Mynthurst Miss Radcliffe 116 Abbey-Leix Sir James Whitehead, Bart. 118 Michaelmas Daisies, Munstead Wood Mr. T. Norton Longman 122 The Alcove, Arley Mrs. Campbell 125 The Rose Garden, Arley Mrs. Huth 126 Lady Coventry’s Needlework Mrs. Appleton 129

BROCKENHURST

The English gardens in which Mr. Elgood delights to paint are for the most part those that have come to us through the influence of the Italian Renaissance; those that in common speech we call gardens of formal design. The remote forefathers of these gardens of Italy, now so well known to travellers, were the old pleasure-grounds of Rome and the neighbouring districts, built and planted some sixteen hundred years ago.

Though many relics of domestic architecture remain to remind us that Britain was once a Roman colony, and though it is reasonable to suppose that the conquerors brought their ways of gardening with them as well as their ways of building, yet nothing remains in England of any Roman gardening of any importance, and we may well conclude that our gardens of formal design came to us from Italy, inspired by those of the Renaissance, though often modified by French influence.

Very little gardening, such as we now know it, was done in England earlier than the sixteenth century. Before that, the houses of the better class were places of defence; castles, closely encompassed with wall or moat; the little cultivation within their narrow bounds being only for food--none for the pleasure of garden beauty.

But when the country settled down into a peaceful state, and men could dwell in safety, the great houses that arose were no longer fortresses, but beautiful homes both within and without, inclosing large garden spaces, walled with brick or stone only for defence from wild animals, and divided or encompassed with living hedges of yew or holly or hornbeam, to break wild winds and to gather on their sunny sides the life-giving rays that flowers love.

So grew into life and shape some of the great gardens that still remain; in the best of them, the old Italian traditions modified by gradual and insensible evolution into what has become an English style. For it is significant to observe that in some cases, where a classical model has been too rigidly followed, or its principles too closely adhered to, that the result is a thing that remains exotic--that will not assimilate with the natural conditions of our climate and landscape. What is right and fitting in Italy is not necessarily right in England. The general principles may be imported, and may grow into something absolutely right, but they cannot be compelled or coerced into fitness, any more than we can take the myrtles and lentisks of the Mediterranean region and expect them to grow on our middle-England hill-sides. This is so much the case, with what one may call the temperament of a region and climate, that even within the small geographical area of our islands, the comparative suitability of the more distinctly Italian style may be clearly perceived, for on our southern coasts it is much more possible than in the much colder and bleaker midlands.

Thus we find that one of the best of the rather nearly Italian gardens is at Brockenhurst in the New Forest, not far from the warm waters of the Solent. The garden, in its present state, was laid out by the late Mr. John Morant, one of a long line of the same name owning this forest property. He had absorbed the spirit of the pure Italian gardens, and his fine taste knew how to bring it forth again, and place it with a sure hand on English soil.

It is none the less beautiful because it is a garden almost without flowers, so important and satisfying are its permanent forms of living green walls, with their own proper enrichment of ball and spire, bracket and buttress, and so fine is the design of the actual masonry and sculpture.

The large rectangular pool, known as the Canal, bordered with a bold kerb, has at its upper end a double stair-way; the retaining wall at the head of the basin is cunningly wrought into buttress and niche. Every niche has its appropriate sculpture and each buttress-pier its urn-like finial. On the upper level is a circular fountain bordered by the same kerb in lesser proportion, with stone vases on its circumference. The broad walk on both levels is bounded by close walls of living

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. G. N. STEVENS]

greenery; on the upper level swinging round in a half circle, in which are cut arched niches. In each leafy niche is a bust of a Cæsar in marble on a tall term-shaped pedestal. Orange trees in tubs stand by the sides of the Canal. This is the most ornate portion of the garden, but its whole extent is designed with equal care. There is a wide bowling-green for quiet play; turf walks within walls of living green; everywhere that feeling of repose and ease of mind and satisfaction that comes of good balance and proportion. It shows the classical sentiment thoroughly assimilated, and a judicious interpretation of it brought forth in a form not only possible but eminently successful, as a garden of Italy translated into the soil of one of our Southern Counties.

Whether or not it is in itself the kind of gardening best suited for England may be open to doubt, but at least it is the work of a man who knew what he wanted and did it as well as it could possibly be done. Throughout it bears evidence of the work of a master. There is no doubt, no ambiguity as to what is intended. The strong will orders, the docile stone and vegetation obey. It is full-dress gardening, stately, princely, full of dignity; gardening that has the courtly sentiment. It seems to demand that the actual working of it should be kept out of sight. Whereas in a homely garden it is pleasant to see people at work, and their tools and implements ready to their hands, here there must be no visible intrusion of wheelbarrow or shirt-sleeved labour.

Possibly the sentiment of a garden for state alone was the more gratifying to its owner because of the near neighbourhood of miles upon miles of wild, free forest; land of the same character being inclosed within the property; the tall trees showing above the outer hedges and playing to the lightest airs of wind in an almost strange contrast to the inflexible green boundaries of the ordered garden.

The danger that awaits such a garden, now just coming to its early prime, is that the careful hand should be relaxed. It is an heritage that carries with it much responsibility; moreover, it would be ruined by the addition of any commonplace gardening. Winter and summer it is nearly complete in itself; only in summer flowers show as brilliant jewels in its marble vases and in its one restricted parterre of box-edged beds.

It is a place whose design must always dominate the personal wishes, should they desire other expression, of the succeeding owners. The borders of hardy and half-hardy plants, that in nine gardens out of ten present the most obvious ways of enjoying the beauty of flowers, are here out of place. In some rare cases it might not be impossible to introduce some beautiful climbing plant or plant of other habit, that would be in right harmony with the design, but it should only be attempted by an artist who has such knowledge of, and sympathy with, refined architecture as will be sure to guide him aright, and such a consummate knowledge of plants as will at once present to his mind the identity of the only possible plants that could so be used. Any mistaken choice or introduction of unsuitable plants would grievously mar the design and would introduce an element of jarring incongruity such as might easily be debased into vulgarity.

There is no reason why such other gardening may not be rightly done even at Brockenhurst, but it should not encroach upon or be mixed up with an Italian design. Its place would be in quite another portion of the grounds.

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MISS RADCLIFFE]

HOLLYHOCKS AT BLYBOROUGH

The climate of North Lincolnshire is by no means one of the most favourable of our islands, but the good gardener accepts the conditions of the place, faces the obstacles, fights the difficulties, and conquers.

Here is a large walled garden, originally all kitchen garden; the length equal to twice the breadth, divided in the middle to form two squares. It is further subdivided in the usual manner with walks parallel to the walls, some ten feet away from them, and other walks across and across each square. The paths are box-edged and bordered on each side with fine groups of hardy flowers, such as the Hollyhocks and other flowers in the picture.

The time is August, and these grand flowers are at their fullest bloom. They are the best type of Hollyhock too, with the wide outer petal, and the middle of the flower not too tightly packed.

Hollyhocks have so long been favourite flowers--and, indeed, what would our late summer and autumn gardens be without them?--that they are among those that have received the special attention of raisers, and have become what are known as florists’ flowers. But the florists’ notions do not always make for the highest kind of beauty. They are apt to favour forms that one cannot but think have for their aim, in many cases, an ideal that is a false and unworthy one. In the case of the Hollyhock, according to the florist’s standard of beauty and correct form, the wide outer petal is not to be allowed; the flower must be very tight and very round. Happily we need not all be florists of this narrow school, and we are at liberty to try for the very highest and truest beauty in our flowers, rather than for set rules and arbitrary points of such extremely doubtful value.

The loosely-folded inner petals of the loveliest Hollyhocks invite a wonderful play and brilliancy of colour. Some of the colour is transmitted through the half-transparency of the petal’s structure, some is reflected from the neighbouring folds; the light striking back and forth with infinitely beautiful trick and playful variation, so that some inner regions of the heart of a rosy flower, obeying the mysterious agencies of sunlight, texture and local colour, may tell upon the eye as pure scarlet; while the wide outer petal, in itself generally rather lighter in colour, with its slightly waved surface and gently frilled edge, plays the game of give and take with light and tint in quite other, but always delightful, ways.

Then see how well the groups have been placed; the rosy group leading to the fuller red, with a distant sulphur-coloured gathering at the far end; its tall spires of bloom shooting up and telling well against the distant tree masses above the wall. And how pleasantly the colour of the rosy group is repeated in the Phlox in the opposite border. And what a capital group that is, near the Hollyhocks of that fine summer flower, the double Crown Daisy (_Chrysanthemum coronarium_), with the bright glimpses of some more of it beyond. Then the Pansies and Erigerons give a mellowing of grey-lilac that helps the brighter colours, and is not overdone.

The large fruit-tree has too spreading a shade to allow of much actual bloom immediately beneath it, so that here is a patch of Butcher’s Broom, a shade-loving plant. Beyond, out in the sunlight again, is the fine herbaceous Clematis (_C. recta_), whose excellent qualities entitle it to a much more frequent use in gardens.

The flower-borders are so full and luxuriant that they completely hide the vegetable quarters within, for the garden is still a kitchen garden as to its main inner spaces. These masses of good flowers are the work of the Misses Freeling; they are ardent gardeners, sparing themselves no labour or trouble; to their care and fine perception of the best use of flowers the beauty and interest of these fine borders are entirely due. Indeed, this garden is a striking instance

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. C. E. FREELING]

of the extreme value of personal effort combined with knowledge and good taste.

These qualities may operate in different gardens in a hundred varying ways, but where they exist there will be, in some form or other, a delightful garden. Endless are the possibilities of beautiful combinations of flowers; just as endless is their power of giving happiness and the very purest of human delight. So also the special interest of different gardens that are personally directed by owners of knowledge and fine taste would seem to be endless too, for each will impress upon it some visible issue of his own perception or discernment of beauty.

About the house and lawns are other beds and borders of herbaceous flowers of good grouping and fine growth; conspicuous among them is that excellent flower _Campanula pyramidalis_, splendidly grown.

Though Blyborough is in a cold district, it has the advantage of lying well sheltered below a sharply-rising ridge of higher land.

GREAT TANGLEY MANOR

Forty years ago, lying lost up a narrow lane that joined a track across a wide green common, this ancient timber-built manor-house could scarcely have been found but by some one who knew the country and its by-ways well. Even when quite near, it had to be searched for, so much was it hidden away behind ricks and farm-buildings; with the closer overgrowth of old fruit trees, wild thorns and elders, and the tangled wastes of vegetation that had invaded the outskirts of the neglected, or at any rate very roughly-kept, garden of the farm-house, which purpose it then served.

What had been the moat could hardly be traced as a continuous water-course; the banks were broken down and over-grown, water stood in pools here and there; tall grass, tussocks of sedge and the rank weeds that thrive in marshy places had it all to themselves.

But the place was beautiful, for all the neglect and disorder, and to the mind of a young girl that already harboured some appreciative perception of the value of the fine old country buildings, and whose home lay in a valley only three miles away, Tangley was one of the places within an easy ride that could best minister to that vague unreasoning delight, so gladly absorbed and so keenly enjoyed by an eager and still almost childish imagination. For the mysteries of romantic legend and old tale still clung about the place--stories of an even more ancient dwelling than this one of the sixteenth century.

There was always a ready welcome from the kindly farmer’s wife, and complete freedom to roam about; the pony was accommodated in a cowstall, and many happy summer hours were spent in the delightful

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. WICKHAM FLOWER]

wilderness, with its jewel of a beautifully-wrought timbered dwelling that had already stood for three hundred years.

In later days, when the whole of the Grantley property in the district was sold, Great Tangley came into the market. Happily, it fell into the best of hands, those of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham Flower, and could not have been better dealt with in the way of necessary restoration and judicious addition. The moat is now a clear moat again; and good modern gardening, that joins hands so happily with such a beautiful old building, surrounds it on all sides. There was no flower garden when the old place was taken in hand; the only things worth preserving being some of the old orchard trees within the moat to the west. A space in front of the house, on its southward face, inclosed by loop-holed walls of considerable thickness, was probably the ancient garden, and has now returned to its former use.

The modern garden extends over several acres to the east and south beyond the moat. The moat is fed by a long-shaped pond near its south-eastern angle. The water margin is now a paradise for flower-lovers, with its masses of water Irises and many other beautiful aquatic and sub-aquatic plants; while Water-Lilies, and, surprising to many, great groups rising strongly from the water of the white Calla, commonly called Arum Lily, give the pond a quite unusual interest. To the left is an admirable bog-garden with many a good damp-loving plant, and, best of all in their flowering time, some glorious clumps of the Moccasin Flower (_Cypripedium spectabile_), largest, brightest, and most beautiful of hardy orchids.

Those who have had the luck to see this grand plant at Tangley, two feet high and a mass of bloom, can understand the admiration of others who have met with it in its North American home, and their description of how surprisingly beautiful it is when seen rising, with its large rose and white flowers, and fresh green pleated leaves, from the pools of black peaty mud of the forest openings. But it seems scarcely possible that it can be finer in its own home than it is in this good garden.

Beyond the bog-garden, on drier ground, is a garden of heaths, and, returning by the pathway on the other side of the pond, is the kitchen garden, a strip of pleasure-ground being reserved between it and the pond. Here is the subject of the picture. The pergola runs parallel with the pond, which, with the house and inclosed garden, are to the spectator’s right. To the left, before the vegetable quarters begin, is a capital rock-garden of the best and simplest form--just one long dell, whose sides are set with rocks of the local Bargate stone and large sheets of creeping and rock-loving plants. Taller green growths of shrubby character shut it off from other portions of the grounds.

The picture speaks for itself. It tells of the right appreciation of the use of the good autumn flowers, in masses large enough to show what the flowers will do for us at their best, but not so large as to become wearisome or monotonous. Roses, Vines and Ivies cover the pergola, making a grateful shade in summer. Each open space to the right gives a picture of water and water-plants with garden ground beyond, and, looking a little forward, the picture is varied by the background of roof-mass with a glimpse of the timbered gables of the old house.

The new garden is growing mature. The Yews that stand like gate-towers flanking the entrance of the green covered way, have grown to their allotted height, doing their duty also as quiet background to the autumnal flower-masses. In the border to the left are Michaelmas Daisies, French Marigolds, and a lower growth of Stocks; to the right is a dominating mass of the great white Pyrethrum, grouped with pink Japan Anemone, Veronicas and yellow Snapdragon. Japan Anemones, both pink and white, are things of uncertain growth in many gardens of drier soil, but here, in the rich alluvial loam of a valley level, they attain their fullest growth and beauty.

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF LORD HENRY GROSVENOR]

BULWICK HALL

Bulwick Hall, in Northamptonshire, the home of the Tryon family, but, when the pictures were painted, in the occupation of Lord and Lady Henry Grosvenor, is a roomy, comfortable stone building of the seventeenth century. The long, low, rather plain-looking house of two stories only, is entered in an original manner by a doorway in the middle of a stone passage, at right angles to the building, and connecting it with a garden house. The careful classical design and balustraded parapet of the outer wall of this entrance, and the repetition of the same, only with arched openings, to the garden side, scarcely prepare one for the unadorned house-front; but the whole is full of a quiet, simple dignity that is extremely restful and pleasing. Other surprises of the same character await one in further portions of the garden.

Passing straight through the entrance gate there is a quiet space of grass; a level court with flagged paths, bounded on the north by the house and on the east and west by the arcade and the wall of the kitchen garden. The ground falls slightly southward, and the fourth side leads down to the next level by grass slopes and a flight of curved steps widening below. Trees and shrubs are against the continuing walls to right and left, and beds and herbaceous borders are upon the grassy space. The wide green walk, between long borders of hardy plants, leading forward from the foot of the steps, reaches a flower-bordered terrace wall, and passes through it by a stone landing to steps to right and left on its further side. A few steps descend in twin flights to other landings, from which a fresh flight on each side reaches the lowest garden level, some nine feet below the last. The whole of this progression, with its pleasant variety of surface treatment and means of descent, is in one direct line from a garden door in the middle of the house front.

The lowest flight of steps, the subject of the first picture, has a simple but excellent wrought-iron railing, of that refined character common to the time of its making. It was draped, perhaps rather over-draped when the picture was painted, with a glory of Virginia Creeper in fullest gorgeousness of autumn colouring. This question of the degree to which it is desirable to allow climbing plants to cover architectural forms, is one that should be always carefully considered. Bad architecture abounds throughout the country, and free-growing plants often play an entirely beneficent part in concealing its mean or vulgar or otherwise unsightly character. But where architectural design is good and pure, as it is at Bulwick, care should be taken in order to prevent its being unduly covered. Old brick chimney-stacks of great beauty are often smothered with Ivy, and the same insidious native has obliterated many a beautiful gate-pier and panelled wall. But the worst offender in modern days has been the far-spreading Ampelopsis Veitchii, useful for the covering of mean or featureless buildings, but grievously and mischievously out of place when, for instance, ramping unchecked over the old brickwork of Wolsey’s Palace at Hampton Court. Some may say that it is easily pulled off; but this is not so, for it leaves behind, tightly clinging to the old brick surface, the dried-up sucker and its tentacle, desiccated to a consistency like iron wire. These are impossible to detach without abrasion of surface, while, if left, they show upon the brick as a scurfy eruption, as disfiguring to the wall-face as are the scars of smallpox on a human countenance.

The iron-railed steps in the picture come down upon a grassy space rather near its end. Behind the spectator it stretches away for quite four times the length seen in the picture. It is bounded on the side opposite the steps by a long rectangular fish-pond. The whole length of this is not seen, for the grass walk narrows and passes between old yew hedges, one on the side of the pond, the other backed by some other trees against the kitchen garden wall, which is a prolongation of the terrace wall in the picture.

The garden is still beautifully kept, but owes much of its wealth of

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF LORD HENRY GROSVENOR]

hardy flowers to the planting of Lady Henry Grosvenor, whose fine taste and great love of flowers made it in her day one of the best gardens of hardy plants, and whose untimely death, in the very prime of life, was almost as much deplored by the best of the horticultural amateurs who only knew her by reputation, but were aware of her good work in gardening, as by her wide circle of personal friends.

She had a special love for the flag-leaved Irises, and used them with very fine effect. The borders that show to right and left of the steps had them in large groups, and were masses of bloom in June; other plants, placed behind and between, succeeding them later. Lady Henry was one of the first amateurs to perceive the value of planting in this large way, and, as she had ample spaces to deal with, the effects she produced were very fine, and must have been helpful in influencing horticultural taste in a right direction.

Another important portion of the garden at Bulwick is a long double flower-border backed by holly hedges, that runs through the whole middle length of the kitchen garden. It is in a straight line with the flagged walk that passes westward across the green court next to the house, and parallel with its garden front. The flagged path stops at the gate-piers in the second picture, a grass path following upon the same line and passing just behind the shaded seat.

The holly hedges that back the borders are old and solid. Their top line, shaped like a flat-pitched roof, is ornamented at intervals with mushroom-shaped finials, each upon its stalk of holly stem. The grass walk and double border pass right across the kitchen garden in the line of its longest axis. At the furthest end there is another pair of the same handsome gate-piers with a beautiful wrought-iron gate, leading into the park. The park is handsomely timbered, and in early summer is especially delightful from the great number of fine old hawthorns.

In Lady Henry’s time several borders in the kitchen garden were made bright with annuals and other flowers. Such borders are very commonly used for reserve purposes, such as the provision of flowers for cutting, with one main double border for ornament alone. But where gardens are being laid out from the beginning, such a plan as this at Bulwick, of a grass path with flower borders and a screening hedge at the back, passing through a kitchen garden, is an excellent one, greatly enlarging the length of view of the pleasure garden, while occupying only a relatively small area. It is also well in planning a garden to provide a reserve space for cutting alone, of beds four feet, and paths two feet wide, and of any length suitable for the supply required. This has the advantage of leaving the kitchen garden unencumbered with any flower-gardening, and therefore more easy to work.

Such a long-shaped garden is also capable of various ways of treatment as to its edge, which need not necessarily be an unbroken line. The length of the border in question is perhaps a little too great. It might be better, while keeping the effect of a quiet line, looking from end to end, to have swung the edge of the border back in a segment of a circle to a little more than half its depth, every few yards, in such a proportion as a plan to scale would show to be right; or to have treated it in some one of the many possible ways of accentuation where the cross paths occur that divide it into three lengths. The thinking out of these details according to the conditions of the site, the combining of them into designs that shall add to its beauty, and the actual working of them, the mind meanwhile picturing the effect in advance--these are some of the most interesting and enlivening of the many kinds of happiness that a garden gives.

Be it large or small there is always scope for inventive ability; either for the bettering of something or for the casting of some detail into a more desirable form. Every year brings some new need; in supplying it fresh experience is gained, and with this an increasing power of adapting simple means to such ends as may be easily devised to the advancement of the garden’s beauty.

BRAMHAM

The gardens at Bramham in Yorkshire, laid out and built near the end of the seventeenth century, are probably the best preserved in England or the grounds that were designed at that time under French influence. Wrest in Bedfordshire, and Melbourne in Derbyshire of which some pictures will follow, are also gardens of purely French character.

It is extremely interesting to compare these gardens with those of a more distinctly Italian feeling. Many features they have in common; architectural structure and ornament, close-clipped evergreen hedges inclosing groves of free-growing trees; parterres, pools and fountains. Yet the treatment was distinctly different, and, though not easy to define in words, is at once recognised by the eye.

For one thing the French school, shown in its extremest form by the gardens of Versailles, dealt with much larger and more level spaces. The gardens of Italian villas, whether of the Roman Empire or of the Renaissance, were for the most part in hilly places; pleasant for summer coolness. This naturally led to much building of balustraded terraces and flights of steps, and of parterres whose width was limited to that of the level that could conveniently be obtained. Whereas in France, and in England especially, where the country house is the home for all the year, the greater number of large places have land about them that is more or less level and that can be taken in to any extent.

At Bramham the changes of level are not considerable, but enough to furnish the designer with motives for the details of his plan. The house, of about the same date as the garden, was internally destroyed by fire in the last century. The well-built stone walls still stand, but the building has never been restored. The stables and kennels are still in use, but the owner, Captain Lane-Fox, lives in another house on the outskirts of the park. The design of the gardens has often been attributed to Le Nôtre, and is undoubtedly the work of his school, but there is nothing to prove that the great French master was ever in England.

The way to the house is through a large, well-timbered park. Handsome gate-piers with stone-wrought armorial ornament lead into a forecourt stretching wide to right and left. A double curved stairway ascends to the main door. To the left of the house is an entrance to the garden through a colonnade. Next to the garden front of the house, which faces south-west, is a broad gravelled terrace. The ground rises away from the house by a gently sloping lawn, but in the midmost space is a feature that is frequent in the French gardening of the time, though unusual in England: a long theatre-shaped extent of grass. There is a stone sundial standing on two wide steps near the house, and a gradually heightened retaining wall following the rise of the ground. Not more than two feet high where it begins below, and there accentuated on either side by a noble stone plinth and massive urn, the retaining wall, itself a handsome object of bold masonry, follows a straight line for some distance, and then swings round in a segmental curve to meet the equal wall on the further side; thus inclosing a space of level sward. Midway in the curve, where the wall is some twelve feet high, there appear to have been niches in the masonry, possibly for fountains.

The wide gravel walk next the house-front falls a little as it passes to the left, divides in two and continues by an upward slope on either side of a wall-fountain in a small inclosure formed by the retaining walls of the rising paths. The path then passes all round the large rectangular pool, one end of which forms the subject of the picture. This shows well the graceful ease and, one may say, the courteous suavity, that is the foremost character of this beautiful kind of French designing. The high level of the water in the pool, so necessary for good effect, is a detail that is often overlooked in English gardens. Nothing looks worse than a height of bare wall in a pool or fountain basin, and nothing is more commonly seen in our gardens. The low stone kerb bordering the pool is broken at intervals with only slightly rising pedestals for

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

SIR JAMES WHITEHEAD, BART.]

flower vases. Tubs of Agapanthus stand on the projections by the side of the piers that flank the small fountain basin, whose overflow falls into the pool.

All this portion of the garden has a background of yew hedges inclosing large trees. From this pool the ground rises to another; also of rectangular form, but with an arm to the right, in the line of the cross axis, forming a T-shape. Between the two, on a path always rising by occasional flights of steps, is a summer-house. The path swings round it in a circle. To right and left are flower-beds and roses; outside these, also on a curved line, are ranged a series of gracefully sculptured _amorini_, bearing aloft vases of flowers.

The path soon reaches the upper pool, again passing all round it. At the point furthest to the right, at the end of the projecting arm, and looking along the cross axis to where, beyond the pool, the ground again rises, is a handsome wall fountain, with steps to right and left, inclosed by panelled walls. All this garden of pool and fountain, easy way of step and gravel, and ornament of flower and sculpture, is bounded by the massive walls of yew, and all beyond is sheltering quietude of ancient trees. From several points around the highest pool, as well as from the rising lawns to right and left of the theatre, straight grass-edged paths, bordered by clipped hornbeam, lead through the heavily wooded ground. From distant points the main walks converge; and here, in a circular green-walled court, stands a tall pedestal bearing a handsome stone vase. The prospects down the alleys are variously ended; some by pillared temples set in green niches, some by the open park-landscape; some by further depths of woodland. It is all easy and gracious, but full of dignity--courtly--palatial; bringing to mind the stately bearing and refined courtesy of manner of our ancestors of two centuries ago. It is good to know that some of these gardens and disciplined woodlands still exist in our own land and in France; these quiet _bosquets de verdure_ of those far-away days. Though the scale on which they were planned is only suitable for the largest houses and for wealthy owners who can command lavish employment of labour, yet we cannot but admire the genius of those garden artists of France who designed so boldly and yet so gracefully, and who have left us such admirable records of their abounding ability.

MELBOURNE

The gardens of Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire, the property of Earl Cowper, but occupied for the last five-and-twenty years by Mr. W. D. Fane, though perhaps less well preserved than those of Bramham, still show the design of Henry Wise in the early years of the eighteenth century. There had formerly been an older garden. Wise’s plan shows how completely the French ideas had been adopted in England, for here again are the handsome pools and fountains, the garden thick-hedged with yew, and the _bosquet_ with its straight paths, green-walled, leading to a large fountain-centred circle in the thickest of the grove.

The whole space occupied by the house and grounds is not of great extent; it is irregular and even awkward in shape, and has roads on two sides.

The treatment is extremely ingenious; indeed, it is doubtful whether any other plan that could have been devised would have made so much of the space or could have so cleverly concealed the limits.

The garden lies out forward of the house in a long parallelogram. Next to the house-front is the usual wide gravel terrace, from which paths, inclosing spaces of lawn, lead down to a lower level. The whole lawn, with its accompanying paths, slopes downward; where a steeper slope occurs above and below, the path becomes a flight of steps.

The lower level is intersected by paths. As they converge, they swing round the pedestal of the Flying Mercury that stands upon a circular grass-plot. The main path soon reaches the edge of the handsome pool known as the Great Water. It is four-sided, with a

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. W. V. R. FANE]

further semi-circular bay. A wide grass verge and turf slope form the edging. Broad walks pass all round, with pleasant views at various points into the cool and shaded woodland alleys. Near the further angles of the pool’s green court, the great yew hedge, which bounds the whole garden, swings back into shallow segmental niches to take curved stone seats. Just beyond, on the return angle, the view from the path, here passing the right side of the pool, is ended by the lead figure of Perseus, of heroic size, also standing in a niche cut in the yews. The companion statue of Andromeda occupies the corresponding niche on the other side.

After passing the Mercury, the view across the pool is met by a curious piece of wrought-iron work in the form of a high, dome-topped summer-house; a masterpiece of Jean Tijou. It is entered by steps, and leads, through the trees, to higher ground beyond.

Right and left of the middle and upper portions of the garden the great yew hedges are double; planted in parallel lines, with an open space between. Scotch Firs, now very old and towering high aloft, give great character to this part of the garden. In one place there are three parallel hedges of yew, the two outermost forming the “Dark Arbour,” a tunnel of yew a hundred yards in length, only broken near its lower end, where a small fountain marks the crossing of a broad path.

All the lower portion of the garden is surrounded by a dense grove of trees, in which other tall Scotch Firs stand out conspicuously. Its most extensive area is on the right side of the Great Water, where several grassy paths, bounded by clipped hedges of yew and lime, radiate from a large circular space where there is a wide, round basin and fountain-jet. Looking along one of the pleasant green ways, other jets are seen springing from further fountains where more paths cross. The ends of some of the walks are finished with alcoves or arbours. One of them, that runs diagonally from the right-hand side of the large pool, crosses the great wood fountain, and passing on some distance further ends at a magnificent lead urn on a massive pedestal. This is also the terminal point of view of another of the longest of the green paths.

The water that supplies the pools and fountains comes from a wild pond, the home of many wild-fowl, that is on a higher level, outside the grounds and beyond one of the roads that bounds them. A stream from the pond meanders through the wooded ground, and is conducted by a culvert to the large pool; the overflow passing out on the opposite side in the same way.

Important in the garden’s decoration are the unusual number of lead statues and other accessories, of excellent design. The upper lawn has two kneeling figures of negro or Indian type, bearing on their heads, partly supported by their hands, circular tables with moulded edges that carry an urn-finial. The central ornament of the next level is the Flying Mercury, after John of Bologna. Referring to this example, Messrs. Blomfield and Inigo Thomas tell us in “The Formal Garden in England” that “lead statues very easily lose their centre of gravity.” This is exemplified by the Mercury at Melbourne, which has already come over to a degree which makes its evident want of balance distressing to the eye of the beholder, and forebodes its eventual downfall.

Lead as a material for such use in gardens is much more suitable to the English climate than marble. It acquires a beautiful silvery colouring with age, whereas marble becomes disfigured with blackish weather-streaks. During the eighteenth century the art of lead casting came to great perfection in England. Some good models came from Italy; the original of the kneeling slave at Melbourne is considered to have come from there. Others were brought from France. The inspiration, if not the actual designs or moulds, of the many charming figures of _amorini_ in these gardens must have been purely French. The pictures show how they were used. They stand on pedestals at several of the points of departure of the green glades. In fountain basins they form jets; the little figure appearing to blow the water through a conch-shell. They are also shown, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, disputing, wrestling or carrying a cornucopia of flowers. One little fellow, alone on his pedestal, is whittling his bow with a tool like a wheelwright’s draw-knife. All are charming and graceful. They are probably more beautiful now than of old, when they were painted and sanded to look like stone.

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. J. W. FORD]

There were several lead foundries in London early in the eighteenth century for the making of these garden ornaments. The foremost was that of John Van Nost. Mr. Lethaby in his book on Leadwork tells us that this Dutch sculptor came to England with King William III.; that his business was taken in 1739 by Mr. John Cheere, who served his time with his brother, Sir H. Cheere, who made several of the Abbey monuments. The kneeling slave, bearing either a vase, as at Melbourne, or a sundial as in the Temple Gardens in London, and in other pleasure grounds in different parts of the country, was apparently a favourite subject. The figure, not always from the same mould in the various examples, but always showing good design, was evidently of Italian origin. Towards the end of the century, designs for lead figures became much debased, and such subjects as people sitting round a table, painted like life, could not possibly have served any decorative purpose. The natural colour of lead is so good that no painting can improve it. In Tudor days it was often gilt, a much more permissible treatment.

In the old days there was probably a parterre at Melbourne, now no longer existing. The figures of kneeling slaves were possibly the centre ornaments of its two divisions, on what is now the upper lawn. This portion of the garden is rather liberally, and perhaps somewhat injudiciously, planted with a mixture of conifers, put in probably thirty to forty years ago, when the remains of good old garden designs were not so reverently treated, nor their value so well understood, as now. Some of this planting has even strayed to the banks of the Great Water. The pleasure ground of Melbourne is a precious relic of the past, and, even though the ill effects of the modern planting of various conifers may be less generally conspicuous there than it is in many places, yet it is distinctly an intrusion. The tall trees inclosed by massive yew hedges, the pools and fountains, the statues and other sculptured ornaments, all recall, with their special character of garden treatment, the times and incidents that Watteau loved to paint. Such a picture as his _Bosquet de Bacchus_, so well known by the engraving, with its gaily-dressed groups of young men and maidens seated in the grassy shade and making the music of their lutes and voices accompany that of the fountains’ waters, might have been painted at Melbourne. For here are the same wide, green-walled alleys, the pools, the fountains and the ornamental details of the great gardens of courtly France of two hundred years ago acclimatised on English soil; not in the dreary vastness of Versailles, but tamed to our climate’s needs and on a scale attuned to the more moderate dimensions of a reasonable human dwelling.

BERKELEY CASTLE

This venerable pile, one of the oldest continuously-inhabited houses in England, stands upon a knoll of rising ground at the southern end of the tract of rich alluvial land known as the Vale of Berkeley, that stretches away for ten miles or more north-eastward in the direction of Gloucester. Within two miles to the west is the Severn, already a mile across and rapidly widening to its estuary. On the side of the higher ground the town creeps up to the shelter of the Castle and the grand old church, on the lower is a level stretch of water-meadow.

Seen from the meadows some half-mile away it looks like some great fortress roughly hewn out of natural rock. Nature would seem to have taken back to herself the masses of stone reared by man seven and a half centuries ago.

The giant walls and mighty buttresses look as if they had been carved by wind and weather out of some solid rock-mass, rather than as if wrought by human handiwork. But when, in the middle of the twelfth century, in the earliest days of the reign of Henry Plantagenet, the castle was built by Robert, son of Harding, he built it with outer walls ten to fifteen feet thick, without definite plan as it would seem, but, as the work went on, suiting the building to the shape of the hillock and to the existing demands of defensive warfare.

When the day is coming to its close, and the light becomes a little dim, and thin mist-films rise level from the meadows, it might be an enchanted castle; for in some tricks of evening light it cheats the eye into the semblance of something ethereal--sublimate--without substance--as if it were some passing mirage, built up for the moment of towering masses of pearly vapour.

So does an ancient building come back into sympathy with earth and cloud. Its stones are carved and fretted by the wind and rain of centuries; tiny mosses have grown in their cavities; the decay of these has formed mould which has spread into every joint and fissure. Here grasses and many kinds of wild plants have found a home, until, viewed from near at hand, the mighty walls and their sustaining buttresses are seen to be shaggy with vegetation.

These immense buttresses on the meadow side come down to a walled terrace; their foundations doubtless far below the visible base. The terrace level is some twelve feet above the grassy space below. The grass then slopes easily away for a distance of a few hundred feet to the alluvial flat of the actual meadow-land.

Large fig-trees grow at the foot of the wall, rising a few feet above the parapet of the terrace, from which the fruit is conveniently gathered.

It is in the deep, well-sheltered bays between the feet of the giant buttresses that the most interesting of the modern flower gardening at Berkeley is done.

White Lilies grow like weeds in the rich red loam, and there are fine groups of many of the best hardy plants and shrubby things, gathered together and well placed by the late Georgina Lady Fitzhardinge, a true lover of good flowers and a woman of sound instinct and well-balanced taste respecting things beautiful both indoors and out.

The chief relic of the older gardening at Berkeley is the remains of the yew hedge that inclosed the bowling-green on three sides; the fourth side having for its boundary the high retaining wall that supports the entrance road beyond the outer gate. The yews, still clipped into bold rounded forms, may have formed a trim hedge in Tudor days, and the level space of turf, which is reached from the terrace by a flight of downward steps that passes under an arch of the old yews, lies cool and sheltered from the westering sun by the stout bulwark of their ancient shade.

The yew arch in the picture shows where the terrace level descends to the bowling-green. The great buttresses of the main castle wall are behind the spectator. A bowery Clematis is in full bloom over the steps

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. ALBERT WRIGHT]

to the shorter terrace above, and near it, on the lower level, is one of the great pear-trees that have been trained upon the wall, and that, with others on the keep above, brighten up the grim old building in spring-time. _Campanula pyramidalis_ has been sown in chinks on the inner side of the low parapet, and the picture shows how handsomely they have grown, supported only by the slight nutriment they could find among the stones. But, like so many of the Bell-flowers, it delights in growing between the stones of a wall. It should be remembered how well this fine plant will succeed in such a place, as well as for general garden use. It is so commonly grown as a pot-plant for autumn indoor decoration that its other uses would seem to be generally overlooked.

SUMMER FLOWERS

The end of June and beginning of July--when the days are hot and long, and the earth is warm, and our summer flowers are in fullest mass and beauty--what a time of gladness it is, and of that full and thankful delight that is the sure reward for the labour and careful thoughtfulness of the last autumn and winter, and of the present earlier year!