A word or two on the state of architecture itself may not be amiss. From Gower Street to the new Law Courts our architecture does not seem to be in a much better state than landscape gardening is, according to the architects to whom we owe the "Formal Garden" and "Garden Craft"! It is William Morris—whose "design" these authors may respect—who calls London houses "mean and idiotic rabbit warrens:" so that there is plenty to do for ambitious young architects to set their own house in artistic order!
As regards "formal gardening," the state of some of the best old houses in England—Longleat, Compton-Wynyates, Brympton, and many others, where trees in formal lines, clipped or otherwise, are not seen in connection with the architecture—is proof against the need of the practice. As regards the best new houses, Clouds, so well built by Mr. Philip Webb, is not any the worse for its picturesque surroundings, which do not meet the architect's senseless craving for "order and balance"; while Batsford, certainly one of the few really good new houses in England, is not disfigured by the fashions in formality the authors wish to see revived, and of which they give an absurd example in a cut of Badminton. There is, in short, ample proof, furnished both by the beautiful old houses of England and by those new ones that have any claim to dignity, that the system they seek to revive could only bring costly ugliness to our beautiful home-landscapes.
W. R.
July 1, 1892.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| Garden Design | [1] |
| Natural and False Lines | [5] |
| "Uncultivated Nature" | [8] |
| The True Landscape | [13] |
| Buildings in Relation to the Garden | [16] |
| Time and Gardens | [20] |
| True Use of a Garden | [23] |
| Formal Gardening | [25] |
| "Nature," and what we mean by it | [31] |
| "All Our Paths" are Crooked! | [35] |
| "The Only Garden Possible!" | [40] |
| "No Design in Landscape" | [43] |
| No Grass in Landscape Gardening! | [46] |
| "Improving" Battersea Park! | [50] |
| Nature and Clipped Yews | [53] |
| No Line in Nature! | [62] |
| "Vegetable Sculpture" | [66] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Rhianva | To face page | [2] |
| Group of Trees on Garden Lawn | ||
| at Golder's Hill, Hampstead | Page | [4] |
| Wakehurst | To face page | [6] |
| Gilbert White's House at Selborne | " | [10] |
| Example of Formal Gardening | Page | [12] |
| Longleat | To face page | [16] |
| Old Place, Lindfield | " | [18] |
| Arundel Castle | " | [20] |
| Tailpiece | Page | [22] |
| West Dean | To face page | [24] |
| Athelhampton Hall, Dorset | " | [26] |
| The Vicarage Garden, Odiham | " | [30] |
| Unclipped Trees at the Little Trianon | Page | [34] |
| Westonbirt | To face page | [36] |
| Thrumpton Hall | " | [40] |
| Tailpiece | Page | [45] |
| Goodwood | To face page | [46] |
| Avenue in Paris | " | [50] |
| Clipped Trees at the Little Trianon | Page | [52] |
| The "Grange," Hartley Wintney | To face page | [54] |
| A Yew Tree on Mountain, N. England | " | [56] |
| Building in Paris | " | [58] |
| Broadlands, Hants | " | [64] |
| Warren House, Coombe Wood | " | [66] |
| Drummond Castle | " | [68] |
| Madresfield | " | [70] |
| Tailpiece | Page | [73] |