VII

Fascinating as are the old courts and the galleries with their magnificent art collections, the grounds which surround the Palace are, in their way, no less enticing. Indeed, if we might judge by the thronging crowds in flower time, the gardens form for the majority of visitors the most attractive part of the place. These gardens, wonderfully varied and beautifully kept, are not by any means extensive for so noble a Palace, but they prove an unfailing delight. They are markedly divisible in character into three portions—the north where is the Wilderness and Maze; the south where are the Privy and Pond Gardens, the Great Vine House and Queen Mary’s Bower; and the east—or Great Fountain Garden—with its rich herbaceous border along the Broad Walk, its level lawns set with great jewels of floral colour, its compact yews, its radiating walks, its water-lily pond, and beyond the gleaming stretch of the Long Canal and the tall trees that border the Park. In all parts of these gardens are to be seen beauties that delight the eye and linger in the memory, and each of them successively draws the sightseers.

These gardens have seen many changes during the centuries of the Palace’s history, changes largely from one kind of formality to another, judging from the plans of them at various times. As I have said that the majority of visitors enter the Palace precincts by way of the Western Trophy Gate, and as such visitors would naturally reach the grounds by the eastern entrance beyond the cloistered Fountain Court, it may be well to say something first of the eastern gardens—which certainly, in summer, form the most florally gorgeous part of the whole. We come out here in the middle of the Broad Walk, which stretches from near the Kingston Road to the Thames’ side. In front of us, bordered by old yew trees, are gravel walks radiating to the House or Home Park, the centre one leading, round a fountain pond starred in summer with lovely water lilies of various colours, to the head of the Long Canal, where are many water fowl—swans, geese, and ducks of different species—expectant of the visitors’ contributions of bread or biscuit.

Right and left as we emerge from the Palace the Broad Walk stretches, inviting us in each direction with a brilliant display of many coloured flowers—more especially in spring and early summer, when the gardens, attractive at all times, are perhaps at their very best. Old plans of the grounds of Hampton Court show that these eastern gardens have seen the greatest changes during successive centuries. At one time the Long Canal stretched much closer to the Palace, and after it was shortened the intervening gardens were for a period a veritable maze of intricate ornamental beds with small fountains dotted about them; at another time they showed an array of formally cut pyramidal evergreens disposed along the sides of the walks.

It was probably the coming of William and Mary to Hampton Court that caused special attention to be paid to the grounds, for Queen Mary appears to have been greatly interested in the matter. Many and various as have been the re-plannings it may be believed that never have the gardens looked better than at present, when taste in things floricultural has broken away from the formalism of scroll-pattern borders and indulgence in the eccentricities of topiarian art—is even, it is to be hoped, on the way to free itself finally from the ugliness of “carpet bedding”—when plants are largely grouped and massed instead of being placed in alternate kinds at regular intervals in geometrical patterns. Present day taste with its appreciation of garden colour, of masses and groups of particular kinds, instead of isolated plants dotted about with irritating regularity, is found beautifully exemplified in the numerous beds cut in the lawns of the eastern gardens, and in the long borders which run north and south of the palace along one side of the Broad Walk. Here, from the beginning of the year, when the patches of cerulean, “glory of the snow”, and of low-growing irises of a deeper blue, begin that procession which is soon to develop into a very pageantry of colour—from when myriad yellow crocuses first star the lawns with gold in February—is given a succession of changes that may well tempt the lover of gardens to Hampton Court again and again. These beds and borders with their succession of spring bulbs and summer flowers, their brilliant annuals and massed perennials are not only a delight to the eyes of all, but that they afford endless hints, are as it were horticulturally educational to garden-loving visitors, may be gathered from the frequency with which such visitors are seen to consult the name-labels of the various plants.

The southern end of the Broad Walk is semi-circular with an outlook over the river, upwards, to where Molesey Lock and Weir are cut from view by the hideous Hampton Court Bridge, and downwards, towards Thames Ditton and Kingston. It is one of the most charming views on the river near London, the many trees on islands and banks shutting off the neighbouring town. On a hot summer day, the decorated houseboats moored to the Surrey bank and the innumerable small craft passing up and down help to form a delightful and characteristic bit of the Stream of Pleasure. That the view is one that is well appreciated is shown by the fact that on such an afternoon the Water Gallery, as this view point is named, generally attracts and holds many of the visitors to the Palace.

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THE LONG WATER IN WINTER