The kitchen garden lies between the house and the newer gardens that have been described. The maze should not be forgotten. It is at the back of the alcove and the bowling-green. These old garden toys are very seldom planted now. Perhaps people have not time for them. Also they are costly of labour; the area of green wall of a maze of even moderate size, that has to be clipped yearly, if computed would amount to an astonishing figure. Now that the possibilities of other forms of garden delight are so much widened, it is small wonder that the maze should have fallen into disuse. It must have been amusing in the older days when people’s lives were simpler and more leisured; but there are puzzles and difficulties enough in our more complicated days, and the influences that we now want in a garden are soothing tranquillities rather than bewildering perplexities. Near the maze and alcove is a group of three great Lombardy Poplars that tells with extremely fine effect from many parts of the garden.
On one side of the house is an old parterre of the kind now but seldom seen out of Italy; with elaborate scrolls and arabesques of clipped box; the more characteristically Italian form of the “knotted” gardens of our Tudor ancestors. The English patterns were much nearer akin to those used so lavishly on gala clothing in the form of needlework of cording and braiding, and the strap-work of wood-carving, while the Italian parterre designs were drawn more freely in flowing lines and less rigid forms.
Opposite the porch is a sundial, supported by a kneeling figure of a black slave, of the same design as the one in the gardens of the Inner Temple, that was formerly at Clement’s Inn, and is known as the “Blackamoor.” Like this one the figure is of lead.
LADY COVENTRY’S NEEDLEWORK
from the picture in the possession of
Mrs. Appleton
LADY COVENTRY’S NEEDLEWORK
This is a pretty Midland name for the good garden plant commonly called Red Valerian, or Spur Valerian (Centranthus ruber), that groups so well in the picture with the straw-thatched beehives. How the name originated cannot be exactly stated, but may easily be inferred. There are several estates in the Midland Counties belonging to the Coventry family, and, bearing in mind what we know of the home life of our great-great-grandmothers of the late eighteenth century, it may be assumed that some Lady Coventry of that date was specially fond of the pretty needlecraft so widely practised among the ladies of that time.