PARTERBK. 



224 



PARTERRE. 



those of long standing at Wentworth 

 Castle, Yorkshire, and Holland 

 House, Kensington, and the more 

 recently formed ones at Wrest, 

 Ijedfordshire, and Trentham Hall, 

 Staffordshire. Parterres of com- 

 partments among the French gene- 

 rally consisted of one square, round, 

 or parallelogram plot of turf, in the 

 centre, surrounded by a border of 

 narrow beds planted with flowers 

 and low shrubs, and these are at 

 present common both in France 

 and England. Parterres anr/lais 

 may be considered as included in 

 the parterres of compartments ; be- 

 cause the French do not now cut up 

 the ground into so many beds as 

 formerly, and they plant a great 

 many more flowers than they did in 

 the time of Le Notre. In all the 

 French parterres of former times, 

 and also in most of those imitated 

 in England, the groundwork, or, in 

 j other words, the little walks on 

 which the arabesques of box ap- 

 peared to be planted, were of diffe- 

 rent-coloured sands, gravel, shells, 

 powdered stones, or brick, so as to 

 exhibit different colours in the same 

 parterre ; but that practice is now 

 left off both on the Continent and in 

 Britain. In a word, parterres are 

 now assemblages of flowers in beds 

 or groups, on a ground of either 

 lawn ur gravel ; in the former case 

 the beds are dug out of the lawn, 

 and in the latter they are separated 

 from the gravel by edgings of box 

 or stone, or of some plant, or 

 durable material. The shape of the 

 beds in either case depends on the 

 style of architecture of the house to 

 which the parterre belongs, or on 

 the taste and fancy of the owner. 

 "Whatever shapes are adopted, they 

 are generally combined into a sym- 

 metrical figure ; for when this is 

 not the case, the collection of beds 

 ceases to be a parterre, or a flower- 



garden, and can only be designated 

 as a gi-oup or collection of groups on 

 a lawn. Hence it is, that all par- 

 terres and regular flower-gardens 

 ought to be separated from the sce- 

 nery by which they are surrounded, 



FIG. 37. — FLOWER GARDEX. 



by a line of demarcation, such as a 

 low architectural wall, with a bal- 

 ustrade and piers and vases ; a low 

 evergreen hedge, a canal, a ridge of 

 rock-work, a sunk fence with the 

 sides of turf or of stone, a raised 

 fence with the ridges and top of 



