130.—Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire. Stone Pillar in Garden.
131.—Gateway in Garden, Lingfield, Sussex (1617).
The lay-out of a late sixteenth century garden was tolerably simple, the whole being treated on a definite system, and with straight lines. The bowling-green was an important adjunct, and the larger houses had mounts for prospect, and also a "wilderness" of considerable extent. The description of the gardens at Nonesuch, given by the Parliamentary Commissioners in their survey of April, 1650[15] (already quoted), gives a good idea of the gardens attached to the larger sort of houses. The "frontispiece," or approach, was railed with handsome rails and balusters of stone; at a distance of eight yards from the house was the bowling-green, from which a fair and straight path led along an avenue to the park gate, which (they say) being very high, well-built, and placed in a direct line opposite to the house, was, in consequence, a good ornament to it. On three outward sides of the inner court lay the "Privy Garden," surrounded with a brick wall 14 feet high, and cut out and divided into various alleys, quarters, and rounds, set about with thorn hedges. Adjoining this garden was the kitchen garden, also enclosed by a 14 feet wall: on the west of this lay the wilderness. In the privy garden was a spiral pyramid of marble, set upon a base of similar material, "grounded upon a rise of freestone;" and near this there was a large marble wash basin, over which stood a marble pelican, fed with water through a lead pipe. There were also two other marble obelisks, and between them a fountain of white marble, set round with six lilac trees, "which trees bear no fruit, but only a very pleasant flower." In the highest part of the park stood the banqueting-house, a three-storey timber building of quadrangular form, enclosed within a brick wall. The ground floor was occupied by the hall, the upper storeys had respectively three and five rooms, and they were all panelled with oak. In each of the four corners of the whole house there was a balcony placed for prospect. This is worth remembering, for the desire to obtain a prospect is generally considered to be of modern growth; and no doubt until quite recently it was necessary to a beautiful view that it should be obtained in ease and comfort. The notion of climbing a wild mountain for the sake of the view was probably never entertained before the beginning of this century.
[15]Archæologia, Vol. V. p. 429.
There is a good example of the lay-out of a forecourt to a small house at Eyam Hall, in Derbyshire, and although tradition and the only date to be found about the building (on a spout-head) place the erection of the house in the latter part of the seventeenth century, it looks much earlier, and is characteristic of the beginning of the century rather than of the end. There is very little detail about it; but the formal disposition and the broad and simple treatment combine (with the assistance of time) to impart a fine and dignified effect. It will be seen from the plan (Fig. [133]) that the court is nearly square. It is entered from the road through a pillared gateway up a short flight of semicircular steps; a broad paved walk leads to another flight which lands on to a wide paved terrace extending along the whole front of the house (Plate [XXXIX].). Exactly opposite the steps is the front door, placed centrally in the main face of the house, which is recessed from the faces of the projecting wings. At either end of the terrace is a doorway, one leading to the kitchen approach, the other to the garden, which is reached down another flight of semicircular steps. The paths in the vicinity of the house are straight, and the rise of the ground necessitates still more steps, which give access eventually to a long, straight walk beneath a south-west wall. Away from the house the treatment has lapsed into less formality; but the house itself, together with the court, the terraces, and the flights of steps, the whole gay with flowers, makes a very attractive picture.
132.—Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. Garden-house.
Plate XXXIXa.
