DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0229
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
207
within that, encompassed with a pale, a dainty bowling-green,
set about with laurel, firs, and other curious trees,”* and in
1681 the Duke of Norfolk’s garden near Norwich is described
by the same writer, Thomas Baskerville: “Taking a boat for
pleasure to view this city by water, the boatman brought
us to a fair garden belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, having
handsome stairs leading to the water, by which we ascended
into the garden, and saw a good bowling-green, and many
fine walks.” In all his journals, Baskerville notices the
public bowling-greens at all the small towns, and attached
to many of the inns he stayed at. Thus, of Pontefract
Castle, he writes, “ of which now only remains the plat-
form and stump of the bottom of the wall 2 or 3 yards above
ground, but yet it is handsome, because employed to fine
gardens and a bowling-green, where you may have for your
money good wine,” also at Bedford “ the ruins of an old
castle, containing within it a fine bowling-green.” Among
others he notes Saffron Walden, “a very good bowling-green
without the town,” and of Watton, a small town in Norfolk,
he says there is little remarkable, save a fine new bowling-
green at the “ George Inn.” These pieces of good turf must have
added much to the beauty of the gardens, and in the small towns
served as a public garden and recreation ground.
Every garden also contained one or more sundials. They
formed, as a rule, a centre of the design, and were in themselves
a fitting ornament to a garden. The sundial has frequently-
survived destruction, when all other traces of an old garden
have been obliterated. At Exton, in Rutlandshire, the old
sundial stands in front of the house which was burnt down,
almost the only vestige of the garden which formerly lay in
front of its windows. In some dials, as in the case at Euston
in Suffolk, the owner’s coat of arms was used to form the style,
or in others the motto of the family was inscribed round the
dial, which is often a great help in fixing the date of the
construction.f Occasionally an entire garden was laid out like
* Thomas Baskerville’s Journal MSS. of the Duke of Portland, Hist. MSS.
Report 13.
t For descriptions and mottoes on sundials see The Book of Sundials,
collected by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, 1872.
207
within that, encompassed with a pale, a dainty bowling-green,
set about with laurel, firs, and other curious trees,”* and in
1681 the Duke of Norfolk’s garden near Norwich is described
by the same writer, Thomas Baskerville: “Taking a boat for
pleasure to view this city by water, the boatman brought
us to a fair garden belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, having
handsome stairs leading to the water, by which we ascended
into the garden, and saw a good bowling-green, and many
fine walks.” In all his journals, Baskerville notices the
public bowling-greens at all the small towns, and attached
to many of the inns he stayed at. Thus, of Pontefract
Castle, he writes, “ of which now only remains the plat-
form and stump of the bottom of the wall 2 or 3 yards above
ground, but yet it is handsome, because employed to fine
gardens and a bowling-green, where you may have for your
money good wine,” also at Bedford “ the ruins of an old
castle, containing within it a fine bowling-green.” Among
others he notes Saffron Walden, “a very good bowling-green
without the town,” and of Watton, a small town in Norfolk,
he says there is little remarkable, save a fine new bowling-
green at the “ George Inn.” These pieces of good turf must have
added much to the beauty of the gardens, and in the small towns
served as a public garden and recreation ground.
Every garden also contained one or more sundials. They
formed, as a rule, a centre of the design, and were in themselves
a fitting ornament to a garden. The sundial has frequently-
survived destruction, when all other traces of an old garden
have been obliterated. At Exton, in Rutlandshire, the old
sundial stands in front of the house which was burnt down,
almost the only vestige of the garden which formerly lay in
front of its windows. In some dials, as in the case at Euston
in Suffolk, the owner’s coat of arms was used to form the style,
or in others the motto of the family was inscribed round the
dial, which is often a great help in fixing the date of the
construction.f Occasionally an entire garden was laid out like
* Thomas Baskerville’s Journal MSS. of the Duke of Portland, Hist. MSS.
Report 13.
t For descriptions and mottoes on sundials see The Book of Sundials,
collected by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, 1872.