DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0132
110
A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
garden of the Elizabethan era. What is meant now by a
“formal” or “old-fashioned” garden, is one of this type;
but, as genuine and unaltered Elizabethan gardens are rare,
it is generally the further development of the same style a
hundred years later, which is known as a “ formal old
English garden.”
The garden of this period was laid out strictly in connexion
with the house. The architect who designed the house,
designed the garden also. There are some drawings extant
by John Thorpe, one of the most celebrated architects of
the time, of both houses and the gardens attached to them.
The garden was held to be no mere adjunct to a house, or
a confusion of green swards, paths, and flower-beds, but the
designing of a garden was supposed to require even more
skill than the planning of a house; “ men come to build
stately sooner than to garden finety;—as if gardening were
the greater perfection.”* Sir Hugh Platt’s opiniont seems
to have been the exception that proves the rule, as most
other writers were particular in describing the correct form
for a garden, but he writes:—“I shall not trouble the reader
with any curious rules for shaping and fashioning of a 'garden
or orchard—how long, broad or high, the Beds, Hedges, or
Borders should be contrived. . . . Every Drawer or Embroid-
erer, nay (almost) each Dancing Master, may pretend to such
niceties; in regard they call for very small invention, and
lesse learning.”
In front of the house there was usually a terrace, from
which the plan of the garden could be surveyed. Flights of
steps and broad straight walks, called “ forthrights,” J connected
the parts of the garden, as well as the garden with the
house. Smaller walks ran parallel with the terrace, and the
spaces between were filled with grass plots, mazes, or knotted
beds. The “ forthrights ” corresponded to the plan of the
* Bacon, Essay on Gardens.
f Floraes Paradise, or Garden of Eden, ist cd., 1608.
J . . . “ here’s a maze trod indeed,
Through forthrights and meanders . . .
Tempest, act iii. scene 8.
A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
garden of the Elizabethan era. What is meant now by a
“formal” or “old-fashioned” garden, is one of this type;
but, as genuine and unaltered Elizabethan gardens are rare,
it is generally the further development of the same style a
hundred years later, which is known as a “ formal old
English garden.”
The garden of this period was laid out strictly in connexion
with the house. The architect who designed the house,
designed the garden also. There are some drawings extant
by John Thorpe, one of the most celebrated architects of
the time, of both houses and the gardens attached to them.
The garden was held to be no mere adjunct to a house, or
a confusion of green swards, paths, and flower-beds, but the
designing of a garden was supposed to require even more
skill than the planning of a house; “ men come to build
stately sooner than to garden finety;—as if gardening were
the greater perfection.”* Sir Hugh Platt’s opiniont seems
to have been the exception that proves the rule, as most
other writers were particular in describing the correct form
for a garden, but he writes:—“I shall not trouble the reader
with any curious rules for shaping and fashioning of a 'garden
or orchard—how long, broad or high, the Beds, Hedges, or
Borders should be contrived. . . . Every Drawer or Embroid-
erer, nay (almost) each Dancing Master, may pretend to such
niceties; in regard they call for very small invention, and
lesse learning.”
In front of the house there was usually a terrace, from
which the plan of the garden could be surveyed. Flights of
steps and broad straight walks, called “ forthrights,” J connected
the parts of the garden, as well as the garden with the
house. Smaller walks ran parallel with the terrace, and the
spaces between were filled with grass plots, mazes, or knotted
beds. The “ forthrights ” corresponded to the plan of the
* Bacon, Essay on Gardens.
f Floraes Paradise, or Garden of Eden, ist cd., 1608.
J . . . “ here’s a maze trod indeed,
Through forthrights and meanders . . .
Tempest, act iii. scene 8.