“William Wheatley for makeing and setting up Pallizadoes and gates in and about the said Palace—£152 5s. 10d.”
To the north of these piers lies the north-west corner of the now so-called “Kensington Gardens,” where were formerly situated that part of the old gardens appurtenant to the Palace, laid out by Queen Anne. The present bare uninteresting appearance of the ground round about is now entirely different from what it then was.
OWACK, in his “Antiquities of Middlesex,” writing in the reign of Queen Anne, in 1705, tells us of her improvements: “There is a noble collection of foreign plants and fine neat greens, which makes it pleasant all the year, and the contrivance, variety, and disposition of the whole is extremely pleasing, and so frugal have they been of the room they had, that there was not an inch but what is well improved, the whole with the house not being above twenty-six acres. Her Majesty has been pleased lately to plant near thirty acres more towards the north, separated from the rest by a stately green-house, not yet finished; upon this spot is near one hundred men daily at work, and so great is the progress they have made, that in less than nine months the whole is levelled, laid out, and planted, and when finished will be very fine. Her Majesty’s gardener had the management of this.” Of Queen Anne’s “stately green-house” we shall speak in a moment.
Addison, also, in No. 477 of the “Spectator,” expatiated on the beauties of the gardens: “Wise and London are our heroick poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out any passage of their works to commend, I shall take notice of that part in the upper garden, at Kensington, which was at first nothing but a gravel pit. It must have been a fine genius for gardening, that could have thought of forming such an unsightly hollow into so beautiful an area, and to have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into.”
The cost of these improvements amounted to several thousands of pounds—in levelling, planting, turfing, gravelling. The appearance of the east and south gardens in the reign of Queen Anne will, as we have already said, best be conveyed by Kip’s plate; the general plan of the new enclosed garden to the north, north-east, and north-west, by Rocque’s engraving, published in 1736. From this we see that Queen Caroline, who embarked in so many gardening enterprises, left Queen Anne’s new gardens substantially intact; though she made a clean sweep of all the old fantastic figured flower beds and formal walks of William III.’s parterres to the south and east of the Palace; substituting therefor bare and blank expanses of lawn and wide gravel paths.