DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0135
ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN.
113
entered men’s minds. But because the garden was surrounded
with a high wall, and those inside wished to look beyond, a
terrace was contrived. As in the Middle Ages, we find an
eminence within the walls, as a point from which to look over
them ; so at the period we have now reached, the restricted
view from the mount did not satisfy, and to get a more extended
range over the park beyond and the garden within, a terrace was
raised along one side of the square of the wall. “ I have seen
a garden,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “into which the first access
was a high walk like a terrace, from whence might be taken a
general view of the whole plot below.” De Caux, the designer
of the Earl of Pembroke’s garden at Wilton, made such a
terrace there “ for the more advantage of beholding those
platts.” * Another is described at Kenilworth in 1575, “ hard
all along by the castle wall is reared a pleasant terrace, ten feet
high and twelve feet broad, even under foot, and fresh of
fine grass.”f The terraces, as a rule, were wide and of hand-
some proportions, with stone steps either at the ends or in the
centre, and were raised above the garden either by a sloping-
grass bank, or brick or stone wall. At Kirby, in Northampton-
shire, a magnificent Elizabethan house, now rapidly falling into
decay, all that remains of a once beautiful garden, “ enrich’d
with a great variety of plants,” J is a terrace running the whole
length of the western wall of the garden. It is now planted
with potatoes, and the garden it overlooked is merely a
meadow. The lines in Spenser’s Ruins of Time might have been
written on this garden had he but seen it in its present state.
“ Then did I see a pleasant paradize
Full of sweete flowers and daintiest delights,
Such as on earth man could not more devize;
With pleasure’s choyce to feed his cheerful sprights.
Since that I sawe this gardine wasted quite,
That where it was scarce seemed anie sight;
That I, which once that beautie did beholde,
Could not from teares my melting eyes with-holde.”
* Le Jardin de Wilton. De Caux, 1615.
•f Robert Laneham, Letter describing the Pageants at Kenilworth Castle,.
I575- Extract in Praise of Gardens. Sieveking, 1885.
J Morton, Natural History of Northamptonshire. 1712.
8
113
entered men’s minds. But because the garden was surrounded
with a high wall, and those inside wished to look beyond, a
terrace was contrived. As in the Middle Ages, we find an
eminence within the walls, as a point from which to look over
them ; so at the period we have now reached, the restricted
view from the mount did not satisfy, and to get a more extended
range over the park beyond and the garden within, a terrace was
raised along one side of the square of the wall. “ I have seen
a garden,” says Sir Henry Wotton, “into which the first access
was a high walk like a terrace, from whence might be taken a
general view of the whole plot below.” De Caux, the designer
of the Earl of Pembroke’s garden at Wilton, made such a
terrace there “ for the more advantage of beholding those
platts.” * Another is described at Kenilworth in 1575, “ hard
all along by the castle wall is reared a pleasant terrace, ten feet
high and twelve feet broad, even under foot, and fresh of
fine grass.”f The terraces, as a rule, were wide and of hand-
some proportions, with stone steps either at the ends or in the
centre, and were raised above the garden either by a sloping-
grass bank, or brick or stone wall. At Kirby, in Northampton-
shire, a magnificent Elizabethan house, now rapidly falling into
decay, all that remains of a once beautiful garden, “ enrich’d
with a great variety of plants,” J is a terrace running the whole
length of the western wall of the garden. It is now planted
with potatoes, and the garden it overlooked is merely a
meadow. The lines in Spenser’s Ruins of Time might have been
written on this garden had he but seen it in its present state.
“ Then did I see a pleasant paradize
Full of sweete flowers and daintiest delights,
Such as on earth man could not more devize;
With pleasure’s choyce to feed his cheerful sprights.
Since that I sawe this gardine wasted quite,
That where it was scarce seemed anie sight;
That I, which once that beautie did beholde,
Could not from teares my melting eyes with-holde.”
* Le Jardin de Wilton. De Caux, 1615.
•f Robert Laneham, Letter describing the Pageants at Kenilworth Castle,.
I575- Extract in Praise of Gardens. Sieveking, 1885.
J Morton, Natural History of Northamptonshire. 1712.
8