A Garden of Peace: A Medley in Quietude

by Frank Frankfort Moore

To return to my Temple, within whose portals I swear that I have said my last word respecting the old battle of the styles, I look on its erection as the first progeny of the matrimonial union of the house with its garden. I have mentioned the mound encircled with flowering shrubs at the termination of the lawn. I am unable to say what part was played by this raised ground in the economy of the Norman Castle, but before I had been looking at it for very long I perceived that it was clearly meant to be the site of some building that, would be in keeping with the design of the garden below it—some building in which one could sit and obtain the full enjoyment of the floral beds which were now crying out with melodious insistence for admiration.

The difficulty was to know in what form the building should be cast. I reckoned that I had a free choice in this matter. The boundary wall of the Castle is, of course, free from all architectural trammels. I could afford to ignore it. If the Keep or the Barbican had been within sight, my freedom in this respect would have been curtailed to the narrowest limits: I should have been compelled to make the Norman or the Decorated the style, for anything else would have seemed incongruous in close proximity to a recognised type; but under the existing conditions I saw that the attempt to carry out in this place the Norman tradition would result in something that would seem as great a mockery as the sham castle near Bath.

But I perceived that if I could not carry out the Norman tradition I might adopt the eighteenth century tradition respecting a garden building, and erect one of the classic temples that found favour with the great garden makers of that period—something frankly artificial, but eminently suggestive of the Italian taste which the designers had acquired in Italy.

I have wondered if the erection of these classical buildings in English gardens did not seem very incongruous and artificial when they were first brought before the eyes of the patron; and the conclusion that I have come to is that they seemed as suitable to an English home as did the pure Greek façade of the mansion itself, the fact being that there is no English style of architecture. Italy gave us the handsomest style for our homes, and when people were everywhere met with classical façades—when the Corinthian pillar with, perhaps, its modified Roman entablature, was to be seen in every direction, the classical garden temple was accepted as in perfect harmony with its surroundings. So the regular couplets of Dryden, Pope, and a score of lesser versifiers were acclaimed as the most natural and reasonable form for the expression of their opinions. Thus I hold that, however unenterprising the garden designers were in being content to copy Continental models instead of inventing something as original as Keats in the matter of form, the modern garden designer has only to copy in order to produce—well, a copy of the formality of their time. But if people nowadays do not wish their gardens to reflect the tastes of their ancestors for the classical tradition, they will be very foolish if they do not adopt something better—when they find it.

Of course I am now still referring to the garden out of which the house should spring. The moment that you get free from the compelling influence of the house, you may go as you please; and to my mind you will be as foolish if you do not do something quite different from the House Garden as you would be if you were to do anything different within sight of the overpowering House—almost as foolish as the people who made a beautiful fountain garden and then flung it at the head of that natural piece of water, the Serpentine.

My temple was to be in full view of the house, and I wished to maintain the tradition of a certain period, so I drew out my plans accordingly. I had space only for something about ten feet square, and I found out what the simplest form of such a building would cost. It could be done in stone for some hundreds of pounds, in deal for less than a fourth of that sum.

Both estimates were from well-known people with all the facilities for turning out good work at the lowest figure of profit; but both estimates made me heavy-hearted. I tried to make up my mind not to spend the rest of my life in the state of the Children of Israel when their Temple was swept away; but within six months I had my vision restored, and unlike the old people who wept because the restoration was far behind the original in glory, I rejoiced; for, finding that I could not afford to have the structure in deal, I had it built of marble, and the cost worked out most satisfactorily. In marble it cost me about a fourth of the estimate in deal!