BRYMPTON

THE YEW ALLEY, ROCKINGHAMFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMiss Willmott

THE YEW ALLEY, ROCKINGHAM

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Miss Willmott

shape, but in straight terraces. But it is these grand old hedges of yew that seem to cling most closely to the fabric and sentiment of the ancient building—half house, half castle, whose windows have looked upon them for hundreds of years, and whose inmates have ever paced within their venerable shade.

Brympton d’Evercyin Somersetshire—not far from Montacute, the residence of the Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane—is a house of mixed architectural character of great interest. A large portion of the earlier Tudor building now shows as the western (entrance) front, while, facing southward, is the handsome façade of classical design, said to be the work of Inigo Jones, but more probably that of a later pupil. The balustraded wall flanking the entrance gates—the subject of the picture—appears to be of the time of this important addition, for it is better in design than the balustrade of the terrace, which was built in the nineteenth century.

But the terrace is of fine effect, with the great flight of steps midway in its length that lead down to a wide unspoilt lawn. This again passes to the fish-pond, then to parkland with undulating country beyond.

The treatment of the ground is admirable. Fifty years ago the lawn would probably have been cut up into flower-beds, a frivolity forbidden by the dignified front.

Gardening is always difficult, often best let alone, in many such cases. When the architecture, especially architecture of the classical type, is good and pure, it admits of no intrusion of other forms upon its surfaces. It is complete in itself, and the gardener’s additions become meddling encroachments. When any planting is allowable against houses of this type—as in cases where they are less pure in style and have larger wall-spaces—it should be of something of bold leafage, or large aspect of one simple character; the strong-growingMagnolia grandifloraas an upright example, andWistariaas one of horizontal

THE GATEWAY, BRYMPTONFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMr. Edwin Clephan

THE GATEWAY, BRYMPTON

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Mr. Edwin Clephan

growth. There is some planting between the lower windows at Brympton, but it is doubtful whether it would not have been better omitted. It is a place more suitable (if on this front any gardening is desirable) for the standing of Bays or some such trees, in tubs or boxes on the terrace.

There is sometimes a flower-border at the base of such a house; where this occurs it is a common thing to see it left bare in winter and in the early year dotted with bulbous plants and spring flowers; to be followed in summer with bedding-plants. No such things look well or at all in place directly against a building. The transition from the permanent structure to the transient vegetation is too abrupt. At least the planting should be of something more enduring and of a shrubby character, and mostly evergreen. Such plants asBerberis Aquifolium, Savin, Rosemary and Laurustinus would seem to be the most suitable, with the large, persistent foliage of the Megaseas as undergrowth, Pyrus japonica for early bloom, and perhaps some China Roses among the Rosemary.

But happily this house has been treated as to its environment with the wisest restraint. No showy or pretentious gardening intrudes itself upon the great charm of the place, which is that of quiet seclusion in a beautiful but little-known part of the county. The place lies among fields—just the House, the Church and the Rectory. There is no village or public road. The house is approached by a long green forecourt inclosed by walls. Between this and the kitchen garden is the quiet, low, stone-roofed church, in a churchyard that occupies such another parallelogram as the forecourt. The pathway to the church passes across the forecourt into the restful churchyard with its moss-grown tombs and bushes of old-fashioned Roses, and the grassy mounds that mark the last resting-place of generations of long-forgotten country folk.

The church has a bell-cote built upon the gable of its western wall of remarkable and very happy form, stone-roofed like the rest. Among the graves stands the base—three circular steps and a square plinth—of what was once an ancient stone cross. The church seems to lie within the intimate protection of the house, adding by its presence to the general impression of repose and peaceful dignity.

The picture shows the walled and balustraded entrance, probably contemporary with the classical façade, wrought of the local Ham Hill stone; a capital freestone for the working of architectural enrichment. It is of a warm yellowish-brown colour; but grey and yellow lichens and brown mosses have painted the surface after their own wayward but always beautiful manner. A light cloud ofClematis Flammulapeeps over the bushes through the balusters. Stonework so good as this can just bear such a degree of clothing with graceful flowery growth; no doubt it is watched and not allowed to hide too much with an excess of overgrowth. Where garden architecture is beautiful in proportion and detail it is not treating it fairly to smother it with vegetation. How many beautiful old buildings are buried in Ivy or desecrated by the unchecked invasion of Veitch’s Virginia Creeper!

Equidistantfrom Pittenweem and St. Monan’s, in Fifeshire, and a mile from the sea, stands Balcaskie, the beautiful home of Sir Ralph Anstruther.

The park is entered from the north by a fine gateway with stone piers bearing “jewelled” balls, dating from the later middle of the seventeenth century. The entrance road is joined by two others from east and west, all passing through a park of delightful character. The road leads straight through a grassy forecourt walled on the three outer sides by yew hedges, and reaches the door by a gravelled half-circle formed by the projection on either side, of the curved walls of the offices and stables. The house, of the middle seventeenth century, though just too late to have been built as a fortress, retains much of the character of the older Scottish castles, but adds to it the increased comfort and commodiousness of its own time. There have been considerable later additions and alterations, but much of the old still remains, including some rooms with very interesting ceilings.

The main entrance on the north leads straight through to a door to the garden on the south. The garden occupies a space equal to about five times the length of the house-front. The ground falls steeply, something like fifty feet in all, and is boldly terraced into three levels. Looking southward from the door and across the garden, the eye passes down a great vista between trees in the park to the Firth of Forth, and across it to the Bass Rock, some twelve miles away and near the further shore.

The upper garden level, reached from the house by a double flight ofdescending steps, has a broad walk running the whole length, with an excellently modelled lead statue at each end; to the west an Apollo, a singularly graceful figure, and to the east a female statue, possibly a Diana. The space in front of the house is divided into three portions; the two outer compartments having hedges of yew from four to five feet high. One of these incloses a bowling-green, the other a lawn with some beds. The middle turfed space has a sundial and beds of flowers. Here is also the remaining one of what was formerly a pair of fine cedars, placed symmetrically to right and left. Adjoining the house and next to the end of the broad walk where stands the Apollo, is the rose-garden, which, with this graceful statue, forms the subject of the picture. The rose-garden is of beds cut in the grass, containing not Roses only but also other bright garden flowers. A female statue of more modern work stands in the centre.

The great terrace wall, eighteen feet high, that forms the retaining wall of the upper portion of the garden, rises towards both ends to its full height as a wall, but the middle space is lightened by being treated with a handsome balustrade. At the extreme ends flights of steps lead down to the next, the middle level. The first long flight reaches a wide stone landing, the lower, shorter flight turning inwards at a right angle. Great buttresses, projecting forward eight feet at the ground-line, add much to the dignity and beauty of the wall. They are roofed with stone, and each one carries the bust of a Roman emperor. From the steps on each side come broad gravelled walks, leading by one step down to a slightly sunk rectangular lawn, which occupies the middle space. On each side of the paths are groups of flower-beds on a long axial line that is parallel with the wall. They have a broad turf verge and a nearly equal space of gravel next to their box-edges. Piers and other important points have stone balls or flower-vases. Stone seats stand upon the landings above the lowest flights or steps, against the walls which bound the garden to right and left. Beyond these boundaries are tall trees, their protecting masses giving exactly that comforting screen that the eye and mind desire, and forming the best possible background to the structure and garnishing of the beautiful garden.

It is one of the best and most satisfying gardens in the British Isles;

THE APOLLO, BALCASKIEFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMiss Bompas

THE APOLLO, BALCASKIE

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Miss Bompas

Italian in feeling, and yet happily wedding with the Scottish mansion of two and a half centuries ago, and forming, with the house and park-land, one of the most perfect examples of a country gentleman’s place. All of it is pleasant and beautiful, home-like and humanly sympathetic; the size is moderate—there is nothing oppressively grand.

More than once already in these pages attention has been drawn to the danger of letting good stone-work become overgrown with rank creepers. At Balcaskie this is evidently carefully regulated. The wall-spaces between the great buttresses, and the buttresses themselves, are sufficiently clothed but never smothered with the wall-loving and climbing plants. The right relation of masonry and vegetation is carefully observed; each graces and dignifies the other; the balance is perfect.

The lowest level is given to the kitchen garden. It is not put out of the way, but forms part of the whole scheme. It is reached by a single flight of handsome balustraded stone steps.

Balcaskie occurs as a place-name early in the thirteenth century. From 1350 to 1615 it was owned by a family named Strang, afterwards by the Moncrieffs, till 1665. It is not known whether any portion of the present house and garden belonged to these earlier dates, but it is probable that the designer of both was Sir William Bruce, one of the best architects of the time of Charles II., and an owner of Balcaskie for twenty years.

Crathes Castlein Kincardineshire presents one of the finest examples of Scottish architecture of the sixteenth century. It is the seat of Sir Robert Burnett of Leys, the eleventh baronet and descendant of the founder.

Profoundly impressive are these great northern buildings, rising straight and tall out of the very earth. As to their lower walls, they are grim, forbidding, almost fiercely repellent. There is an aspect of something like ruthless cruelty in the very way they come out of the ground, without base or plinth or any such amenity—built in the old barbarous days of frequent raiding and fighting, and constant need of protection from marauders; when a man’s house must needs be a strong place of defence.

This is the first impression. But the eye travelling upward sees the frowning wall blossom out above into what has the semblance of a fairy palace. It is like a straight, tall, rough-barked tree crowned with fairest bloom and tenderest foliage. Turrets both round and square, as if in obedience to the commanding wave of a magician’s wand, spring out of the angles of the building and hang with marvellous grace of poise over the abyss. There seems to be no actual plan, and yet there is perfect harmony; the whole beautiful mass appears as if it had come into being in some one far-away, wonderful, magical night! It is a sight full of glamour and romantic impression—grim fortalice below, ethereal fantasy aloft. Rough and rugged is the rock-like wall, standing dark and dim in the evening gloom; intangible, opalescent are the mystic forms above, in the tender warmth of the afterglow; cloud-coloured, faintly rosy, with shadows pearly-blue.

THE YEW WALK, CRATHESFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMr. Charles P. Rowley

THE YEW WALK, CRATHES

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Mr. Charles P. Rowley

Direct descendants of the old Norman keep, these Scottish castles, for the most part, retain the four-sided tower, as to the main portion of the structure. The walls need no buttresses, for they are of immense thickness, and the vaulted masonry, usually of the simple barrel form, that carries the floors of, at any rate, the lower stories, ties the whole structure together. The angle turrets carried on bold corbels that are so conspicuous a feature of these northern castles, broke away from the Norman forms and became a distinct character of the Scottish work. They were a helpful addition to the means of defence, and, as long as they were built for use, added much to the beauty and dignity of the structure. The only detail that shows a tendency to debasement in Crathes is the quantity of useless cannon-shaped gargoyles, put for ornament only, in places where they could not possibly do their legitimate work of carrying off rain-water from the roof.

There could have been no pleasure garden in the old days; but now these ancient strongholds, mellowed by the centuries, seem grateful for the added beauty of good gardening. The grand yew hedges may be of the seventeenth century. They stand up solid and massive for ten feet or more, with roof-shaped tops, and then rise again at intervals into great blocks, bearing ornaments like circular steps crowned with a ball. The ornament is simpler, a low block and ball only, in the first picture, where they accentuate the arches that lead right and left into the two divisions of the flower garden. This plainer form is perhaps more suitable to this grand old place than the more elaborate, just because it is simpler and more dignified.

The flower garden, as it is to-day, is quite modern. The finest of the hardy flowers are well grown in bold groups. Luxuriant are the masses of Phlox and tall Pyrethrum, of towering Rudbeckia, of Bocconia, now in seed-pod but scarcely less handsome than when in bloom; of the bold yellow Tansy and Japan Anemones; all telling, by their size and vigour, of a strong loamy soil.

Many are the arches of cluster and other climbing Roses; at one point in the kitchen garden coming near enough together to make a tunnel-like effect.

Wonderful is the colouring and diversity of texture!—the brightflowers, the rich, dark velvet of the half-distant yews, the weather-worn granite and rough-cast of the great building.

If the flowers in the second and third pictures were in our southern counties the time would be the end of August or at latest the middle of September, but the seasons of the flowers in Scotland are much later, and these would be October borders.

The Castle stands upon a wide, level, grassy terrace, which is stopped on the north-eastern side by the parapet of a retaining wall, broken by a flight of steps down to the path that is bounded by the two hedges of ancient yews shown in the first picture. These hedges divide the flower garden into two equal parts on the lower level, for, from where the Castle stands, the ground falls to the south and east. On each side of the steps, just beneath the terrace wall, is a flower border. Immediately on entering the double wall of yew there is an opening to right and left—an arch cut in the living green—giving access to the two square gardens, in both of which a path passes all round next the yews. There is also a flower border on two sides. The middle space is grass with flower beds; in the left-hand garden (coming from the Castle) are bold masses of herbaceous plants in beds grouped round a fountain; in the one on the right, for the most part, Roses and Lilies.

To the south-east, and occupying the space next beyond the rose garden and the end of the lawn adjoining the Castle, is the kitchen garden. The main walks have flower borders. Where the two cross paths intersect is a Mulberry tree with an encircling seat. The subjects of the second and third pictures are within the kitchen garden.

Many are the beautiful points of view from the kitchen garden, for there the grand yew hedges show beyond the flowers; then, towering aloft, comes the fairy castle, and then fine trees; for trees are all around, closely approaching the garden’s boundaries.

The brilliancy of colour masses in these Scottish gardens is something remarkable. Whether it is attributable to soil or climate one cannot say; possibly the greater length of day, and therefore of daily sunshine, of these northern summers, may account for it. Of the great number of people who go North for the usual autumn shooting, those

CRATHESFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMr. George C. Bompas

CRATHES

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Mr. George C. Bompas

who love the summer flowers find their season doubled, for the kinds they have left waning in the South are not yet in bloom in the more northern latitude. The flowers of our July gardens, Delphiniums, Achilleas, Coreopsis, Eryngiums, Geums, Lupines, Scarlet Lychnis, Bergamot, early Phloxes, and many others, and the hosts of spring-sown annuals, are just in beauty. Sweet Peas are of astounding size and vigour. Strawberries are not yet over, and early Peas are coming in. The Gooseberry season, that had begun in the earliest days of August with the Early Sulphurs and had been about ten days in progress in the Southern English gardens, is for a time interrupted, but resumes its course in September in the North, where this much-neglected fruit comes to unusual excellence. It is a hardy thing, and appears to thrive better north of the Border than elsewhere.

It is one of the wholesomest of fruits; its better sorts of truly delicious flavour. It is a pleasure, to one who knows its merits, to extol them. It is essentially a fruit for one who loves a garden, because, for some reason difficult to define, it is less enjoyable when brought to table in a dessert dish. It should be sought for in the garden ground and eaten direct from the bush. Perhaps many people are deterred by its spiny armature, and it is certain that, when, as is too often the case, the bushes are in crowded rows and have been allowed to grow to a large size, the berries are difficult to get at.

But the true amateur of this capital autumn fruit has them in espalier form, in a few short rows, with ample space—about six feet—between each row.

The plants may be had ready trained in espalier shape, but it is almost as easy to train them from the usual bush form. The vigorous young growth that will spring out every year is cut away at the sides in middle summer; just a shoot or two of young wood being left, when the bushes have grown to a fair size, to train in, to take the place of older wood. The plants being restricted to the fewer branches that form the flat espalier, more strength is thrown into the ones that remain, so that the berries become larger; and, as plenty of light and sun can get to the fruits, even the best kinds are sweeter and better flavoured than when they are allowed to grow in dense bushes.

Then when the kinds are ripe how pleasant it is to take a low seat and sit at ease before each good sort in succession! The best and ripest fruits can be seen at a glance and picked without trouble, in pleasant contrast to the painful, prickly groping that goes on among the crowded bushes. No one would ever regret planting such excellent sorts as Red Champagne, Amber Yellow, Cheshire Lass, Jolly Painter, a large, well-flavoured and little-known berry, and Red Warrington, a trusty late kind. To these should be added two admirable Gooseberries lately brought out by Messrs. Veitch, namely, Langley Green and Langley Gage, both fine fruits of delicious flavour.

If such a little special fruit space were planted in these large Scottish gardens, and the merits of the kinds became known, the daily invitation of the hostess, “Let us go to the gooseberry garden,” would be gladly welcomed, and guests would also find themselves, at various times of day, sauntering towards the gooseberry plot.

How grandly the scarlet Tropæolum (T. speciosum) grows in these northern gardens is well known; indeed, in many places it has become almost a pest. It is much more difficult to grow in the South, where it is often a failure; in any case, it insists on a northern or eastern exposure. Where it does best in gardens in the English counties is in deep, cool soil, thoroughly enriched. When well established, the running roots ramble in all directions, fresh growths appearing many feet away from the place where it was originally planted. It looks perhaps best when running up the face of a yew hedge, when the bright scarlet bloom, and leaves of clear-cut shape, are seen to great advantage, and many of the free growths of the plant take the form of hanging garlands.

CRATHES: PHLOXFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMrs. Croft

CRATHES: PHLOX

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Mrs. Croft

Kellie Castlein Fifeshire, very near Balcaskie, is another house of the finest type of old Scottish architecture. The basement is vaulted in solid masonry, the ground-floor rooms have a height of fourteen feet; the old hall, now the drawing-room, is nearly fifty feet long. A row of handsome stone dormers to an upper floor, light a set of bedrooms, which, as well as the main rooms below, have coved plaster ceilings of great beauty.

There is no certain record of the date of the oldest part of the castle. It is assigned to the fourteenth century, but may be older. The earliest actual date found upon the building is 1573, and it is considered that the mass of the castle, as we see it now, was completed by that date, though another portion bears the date 1606. It belonged of old to the Oliphants, a family that held it for two and a half centuries, when it passed by sale to an Erskine, who, early in the seventeenth century, became Earl of Kellie. In 1797, after the death of the seventh Earl, it was abandoned by the family and soon showed signs of deterioration from disuse. About thirty years later the Earldom of Kellie descended to the Earl of Mar, and the family seat being elsewhere, Kellie was allowed to go to ruin.

In 1878 the ruined place was taken, to its salvation, on a long lease by Mr. James Lorimer, whose widow is the present occupier. It has undergone the most careful and reverent reparation. The broken roofs have been made whole, the walls are again hung with tapestries, and the rooms furnished with what might have been the original appointments.

The castle stands at one corner of the old walled kitchen garden, a door in the north front opening directly into it. The garden has no architectural features. There are walks with high box edgings and quantities of simple flowers. Everywhere is the delightful feeling that there is about such a place when it is treated with such knowledge and sympathy as have gone to the re-making of Kellie as a delightful human habitation. For two sons of the house are artists of the finest faculty—painter and architect—and they have done for this grand old place what boundless wealth, in less able hands, could not have accomplished.

Close to the house on its western side is a little glen, and in it a rookery. When strong winds blow in early spring the nests in the swaying tree-tops come almost within hand reach of the turret windows of the north-west tower.

How the flowers grow in these northern gardens! Here they must needs grow tall to be in scale with the high box edging. But Shirley Poppies, when they are autumn sown, will rise to four feet, and the grand new strains of tall Snapdragons will go five and even over six feet in height.

As the picture shows, this is just the garden for the larger plants—single Hollyhocks in big free groups, and double Hollyhocks too, if one can be sure of getting a good strain. For this is just the difficulty. The strains admired by the old-fashioned florist, with the individual flowers tight and round, are certainly not the best in the garden. The beautiful double garden Hollyhock has a wide outer frill like the corolla of the single flowers in the picture. Then the middle part, where the doubling comes, should not be too double. The waved and crumpled inner petals should be loosely enough arranged for the light to get in and play about, so that in some of them it is reflected, and in some transmitted. It is only in such flowers that one can see how rich and bright it can be in the reds and roses, or how subtle and tender in the whites and sulphurs and pale pinks. Other flowers beautiful in such gardens are the taller growing of the Columbines, the feathery herbaceous Spiræas, such asS. Aruncus, that displays its handsome leaves, and waves its creamy plumes, on the banks of Alpine torrents, and its brethren the lovely pale pinkvenusta, the bright rosypalmataand the cream-whiteUlmaria, the

KELLIE CASTLEFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSIONMr. Arthur H. Longman

KELLIE CASTLE

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION

Mr. Arthur H. Longman

garden form of the wild Meadow-sweet of our damp meadow-ditches. Then the tall Bocconia, with its important bluish leaves and feathery flower-beads, which shows in the picture in brownish seed-pod; and the Thalictrums, pale yellow and purple, and Canterbury Bells, and Lilies yellow and white, and the tall broad-leaved Bell-flowers.

All these should be in these good gardens, besides the many kinds of Scotch Briers, and big bushes of the old, almost forgotten garden Roses of a hundred years ago, many of which are no longer to be found, except now and then in these old gardens of Scotland. For here some gardens seem to have escaped that murderously overwhelming wave of fashion for tender bedding plants alone, that wrought such havoc throughout England during three decades of the last century.

Here, too, are Roses trained in various pretty simple ways. Our garden Roses come from so many different wild plants, from all over the temperate world, that there is hardly an end to the number of ways in which they can be used. Some of them, like the Scotch Briers, grow in close bushy masses; some have an upright habit; some like to rush up trees and over hedges; others again will trail along the ground and even run downhill. Some are tender and must have a warm wall; some will endure severe cold; some will flower all the summer; others at one season only. So it is that we find in various gardens, Roses grown in many different ways. In one as small bushes in beds, or budded on standards, in another as the covering of a pergola, or as fountain roses, throwing up many stems which arch over naturally. Some of the oldest garden Roses, such asThe Garland,Dundee RamblerandBennett’s Seedlingare the best for this kind of use.

The HimalayanR. polyanthawill grow in this way into a huge bush, sometimes as much from thirty to forty feet in diameter, and many of the beautiful modern garden Roses that havepolyanthafor a near ancestor, will do well in the same way, though none of them attain so great a size. Roses grown like this take a form with, roughly speaking, a semi-circular outline, like an inverted basin. If they are wanted to take a shape higher in proportion they must be trained through or over some simple framework. This is called balloon-training. Some roses are grown in this fashion at Kellie, the framework being a central post from which hoopsare hung one above the other. The Rose grows up inside the framework and hangs out all over. If this kind of training is to be on a larger scale, long half-hoops have their ends fixed in the ground, and pass across and across one another at a central point, where they are fixed to a strong post, thus forming ten or twelve ribs. Horizontal wires, like lines of latitude upon a globe, pass all round them at even intervals. Then Roses can be trained to any kind of trellis, either a plain one to make a wall of roses or a shaped one, whose form they will be guided to follow. Then again, there may be rose arches, single, double or grouped; or in a straight succession over a path; or alternate arches and garlands, a pretty plan where paths intersect; the four arches kept a little way back from the point of intersection, with garlands connecting them diagonally in plan. Then there are Roses, some of the same that serve for several of these kinds of free treatment, for making bowers and arbours.

And there are endless possibilities for the beautiful treatment of Rose gardens, though seldom does one see them well done. There are many who think that a Rose garden must admit no other flowers but Roses. This may be desirable in some cases, but the present writer holds a more elastic view. Beds and clumps of Roses where no other flower is allowed, often look very bare at the edges, and might with advantage be under-planted with Pinks and Carnations, Pansies, London Pride, or even annuals. And any Lilies of white and pink colouring such ascandidum,longiflorum,Brownii,Krameri, orrubellumsuit them well, also many kinds of Clematis. The gardener may perhaps, object that the usual cultivation of Roses, the winter mulch and subsequent digging in and the frequent after-hoeing precludes the use of other plants; but all these rules may be relaxed if the Rose garden is on a fairly good rose soil. For the object is the showing of a space of garden ground made beautiful by garden Roses—not merely the production of a limited number of blooms of exhibition quality.

The way the bushes of garden Roses grow and bloom in close companionship with other strong-growing plants, at Kellie and in thousands of other gardens, shows how amicably they live with their near neighbours; and often by a happy accident, they tell us what plants will group beautifully with them.

The Roses that are best kept out of the Rose garden, are those delightful ones of the end of June; the Damasks, and the Provence, the sweet old Cabbage Rose of English gardens. These, and the Scotch Briers of earlier June, bloom for one short season only. Of late years the possibilities of beautiful Rose gardening have been largely increased by the raising of quantities of beautiful Roses of the Hybrid Tea class that bloom throughout the summer, and that, with the coming of autumn, seem only to gain renewed life and strength.

Hardwick Hallin Derbyshire, one of the great houses of England, is, with others of its approximate contemporaries of the later half of the sixteenth century, such as Longleat, Wollaton, and Montacute, an example of what was at the time of its erection an entirely new aspect of the possibilities of domestic architecture.

The country had settled down into a peaceful state. A house was no longer a castle needing external defence. Hitherto the homes of England had been either fortresses, or had needed the protection of moats and walls. They had been poorly lighted; only the walls looking to an inner court, or to a small walled garden could have fair-sized openings. No spacious windows could look abroad upon open country, field or woodland. But by this time such restriction was a thing of the past, and we see in these great houses, and in Hardwick especially, immense window spaces in the outer walls. The architects of the time, John Thorpe, the Smithsons and others, ran riot with their great windows, as if revelling in their exemption from the older bonds. The new freedom was so tempting that they knew not how to restrain themselves, and it was only later, when it was found that the amount of lighting was overmuch for convenience, that the relation of degree of light to internal comfort came to be better understood and more reasonably adjusted.

The famous Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick), to whose initiative this great house owes its origin, set an imperishable memorial of her imperious arrogance upon the balustrading that crowns the square tower-like projections at the angles and ends of the building, where the

THE FORECOURT: HARDWICKFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMr. Aston Webb

THE FORECOURT: HARDWICK

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

Mr. Aston Webb

stone is wrought into lace-like fretwork of arabesque, whereof the chief features are her coronet and the initials of her name.

A spacious forecourt occupies the ground upon the western—the main entrance front. It stretches the whole length of the house, and projects as much forward; its outer sides being inclosed with a wall that bears in constant succession an ornament of afleur-de-lyswith tall pyramidal top, a detail imported direct from Italy, from the Renaissance gardens of earlier date. Such an ornament occurs at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, crowning a retaining wall. The entrance to the inclosed forecourt is by a handsome stone gateway. This gateway forms the background of the picture, which shows one of the well-planted flower borders that abound at Hardwick, and that strike that lightsome and cheerful note of human care and delight that is so welcome in this place whose scale is rather too large, and somewhat coldly forbidding, in relation to the more ordinary aspects of daily comfort.

Indeed—for all the good planting—the long wall-backed flower border facing south, whose wall is in part of its length that of the house itself, looks as if, in relation to the great building towering above it—its occupants were still too small, although they include flowering plants seven to nine feet high, such as Gyneriums and the larger herbaceous Spiræas. A well-directed effort has evidently been made to have the planting on a scale with the lordly building, but the items want to be larger still and the grouping yet bolder, to overcome the dwarfing effect of the towering structure. In such a place the Magnolias, both evergreen and deciduous, would have a fine effect, though possibly they would hardly thrive in the midland climate.

Within the forecourt, along the wall parallel to the house and furthest from it, this need is not so apparent. In the subject of the picture, the Honeysuckle, the magnificently grown purple Clematis upon the wall, the Mulleins, Bocconia and Japan Anemones, are in due proportion; the Tufted Pansies and Mignonette bringing their taller brethren happily down to the grassy verge. Approaching the pathway from the right, stretch some of the long loose growths of one of the two large Cedars that are such prominent objects in the forecourt garden.

The main open spaces of this garden repeat in flower beds on grassthe big E.S. of the self-asserting founder. It is not pretty gardening nor particularly dignified. No doubt it is only a modern acquiescence in the dominating tradition of the place. Even making allowance for, and retaining this sentiment, a better design might have been made, embodying these already too-often-repeated letters. Moreover, the servile copying of the lettering in its stone form only serves to illustrate the futility of reproducing a form of ornament designed for one material in another of totally different nature.

There is some excellent gardening in a long flower-border outside the forecourt wall. Here the size of the house is no longer oppressive, and it comes into proper scale a little way beyond the point where the broad green ways, bounded by noble hedges of ancient yews, swing into a wide circle as they cross, and show the bold niches cut in the rich green foliage where leaden statues are so effectively placed.

By the kindness of the owner, the Duke of Devonshire, Hardwick Hall, illustrating as it does a distinct form of architectural expression with much of historical interest, is open to the public.

Montacutein Somersetshire, built towards the end of the sixteenth century by Sir Edward Phelips, is another of that surprising number of important houses built on a symmetrical plan that arose during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

As the house was then, so we see it now; unaltered, and only mellowed by time. The gardens, too, are of the original design, including a considerable amount of architectural stonework.

The large entrance forecourt is inclosed by a high balustraded wall, with important and finely-designed garden houses on its outer angles. The length of the side walls is broken midway on each side by a small circular pillared pavilion with a boldly projecting entablature, crowned with an openwork canopy and a topmost ornament of two opposite and joining rings of stone.

The piers of the balustrade are surmounted by stone obelisks, and the large paved landing, forming a shallow court at the top of the flight of steps a hundred feet wide, that gives access to the house on this side has tall pillars that now carry lamps, though they appear to have been designed merely as a stately form of ornament.

The forecourt has a wide expanse of gravel with a large fountain basin in the middle. Next the wall there are flower-borders; then the wide gravelled path, and, following this, a broad strip of turf with Irish yews at regular intervals. The general severity of the planning is pleasantly relieved by the bright flower-border, the subject of the picture. To right and left are openings in the wall leading to other garden spaces. The one of these to the left, just behind the spectator as in the picture,leads by an upward flight of steps to one side of a wide terrace walk, that encompasses on all four sides a large sunk garden of formal design. This garden runs the whole length of the forecourt and depth of the house, and has a width equal to some two-thirds of its length. A large middle fountain-basin, with shaped outline of angles and segments of circles, has a balustraded kerb with a stone obelisk on every pier. In the centre is a handsome tazza in which the water plays. Wide paths lead down flights of balustraded steps from all four sides to the gravelled area within which the fountain stands. The spaces between, and the banks rising to the level of the upper terraces, are of turf. Rows of Irish yews stand ranged on both levels. It is all extremely correct, stately—dare one say a trifle dull? Opposite the forecourt the garden is bounded by a good yew hedge protecting it from wind from the valley below. Midway in the length is an opening where a low wall and seats give a welcome outlook. The same yew hedge returns eastward to the south-east angle of the house; the garden’s opposite boundary being a low wall with a sunk fence outside, giving a view into the park.

There is an entrance from the garden to the house on its southern side by a flight of balustraded steps, and niches with seats are on either side of the door.

Wonderful are these great stone houses of the early English Renaissance—wonderful in their bold grasp and sudden assertion of the new possibilities of domestic architecture! For it may be repeated that it was only of late that a man’s house had ceased to be a place of defence, and that he might venture to have windows looking abroad all round, and yet feel perfectly safe without even an inclosing moat.

In the present day it is somewhat difficult to account for the designer’s attitude of mind when deciding on such a lavish employment of the obelisk-shaped finials. One can only regard it as the outcome of the taste or fashion of the day, when he borrowed straight from the Italians everything except their marvellous discernment. One accepts the many obelisks at Montacute as showing the reflection of Italian influence on the Tudor mind; to-day and new, they would be inadmissible. The modern mind, with the vast quantity of material at hand, and the easy access to all that has been said and done on the subject, should

MONTACUTE: SUNFLOWERSFROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMr. E. C. Austen Leigh

MONTACUTE: SUNFLOWERS

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OFMr. E. C. Austen Leigh

accept nothing but the best and purest in this as in any other branch of fine art.

There is one other possible way of accounting for the prevalence of these all-pervading obelisks. The name of the place is taken from a conical wooded hill (mons acutus). The same play on a word, a favourite fashion of Elizabethan times, and a custom in heraldry from a remoter antiquity, is seen in the shield of the ancient Montacute family, where the three sharp peaks denote that the surname had the same origin. The connexion of this name with the acute peak or obelisk form would therefore the more readily commend itself to the Elizabethan mind.

The house has never gone into other hands, the present owner, Mr. W. R. Phelips, being the descendant of the founder.

Itwould seem to be a law that the purest and truest human pleasure in a garden is attained by means whose ratio is exactly inverse to the scale or degree of the garden’s magnificence. The design, for instance, of a Versailles impresses one with a sense of ostentatious consciousness of magnitude; out of scale with living men and women; whose lives could only be adapted to it, as we know they were, by an existence full of artificial restraints and discomforts; the painful and arbitrarily imposed conditions of a tyrannical and galling etiquette.

So we think also of our greatest gardens, such as Chatsworth. It is visited by a large number of people who go to see it as a large expensive place to gape at, but surely not for the truest love of a garden. So it is with many a large place; the size and grandeur of the garden may suit the great house as a design; it may be imposing and costly, it may be beautifully kept, and yet it may lack all the qualities that are needed for simple pleasure and refreshment. It is not till we come to some old garden of moderate size that has always been cherished and has never been radically altered, that the true message of the garden can be received and read; and it is from thence downward in the scale of grandeur that we find those gardens that are the happiest and best of all for true delight and close companionship; the simple borders of hardy flowers, planted and tended with constant watchfulness and loving care by the owner’s own hands.

Such a garden is this of Mr. Elgood’s; in a midland county, and on a strong soil that throws up good hardy plants in vigorous luxuriance. Here grow the great Orange Lilies—the Herring Lilies of

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