NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS 



though of comparatively recent creation, are wanting neither in 

 distinction nor in charm of style, and are arranged with a fine 

 sense of proportion. Much use has been made of ilex trees and 

 clipped yews ; and in the yew garden there is a good deal of 

 interesting topiary work. The Alcove Walk, particularly, is a 

 very commendable example of formal design ; the introduction of 

 the projecting buttresses of clipped yew to break the length of the 

 flower borders which fringe the path is ingenious and effective 

 the dark foliage of the yews, moreover, makes a telling background 

 to the masses of flowers growing in the beds. The rock garden, as 

 an illustration of a very different type of gardening, has undoubted 

 claims to consideration, though, of course, it is less distinctive in 

 character. 



Baddesley Clinton Hall (Plate VIII.), an old moated house, is more 

 remarkable for the picturesqueness of the building itself than for 

 the importance of the surrounding garden, but the study of the 

 courtyard has been included as an instance of clever and appropriate 

 laying out of the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of a 

 house. Belvoir Castle (Plates IX. and X.) is a place of quite 

 another order. Its praises have often been sung, and by no one, 

 perhaps, more enthusiastically than by Dean Hole, who in his 

 " Book about the Garden " rhapsodises about the beauties of Belvoir 

 in the spring time : " The position is perfect ; sunny slopes, green 

 and mild declivity, or steep and stony, suggesting Alpine plants and 

 pathways, with grand old trees, evergreen and deciduous, over 

 which as you walk on the higher ranges of the gardens, you see 

 the lake beyond, and through which, as you wander below, the 

 picturesque towers of the castle. The arrangement of the beds, 

 banks, groups, is perfect also ; colour just where it is most effective, 

 of every hue, but always in congruity; no gaudy glare to frizzle 

 your eye-lashes, no sensational contrasts which seem to say, c Now 

 did you ever ? ' but an exquisite freshness, brightness, unity, 

 repose." These gardens, which Dean Hole in the same book 

 declares to be " the most beautiful in all England," are at present 

 being partly remodelled. 



Blickling Hall (Plates XL to XIII.) is famous for its large and 

 dignified formal garden, which was originally designed by Nesfield, 

 who, after serving as a lieutenant in the Navy, made a considerable 

 reputation more than half a century ago as a landscape gardener and 

 water-colour painter. The principal garden, intersected by a broad 

 walk leading away up flights of steps to a pavilion in the distance, 

 is complex in design, but is too spacious to seem restless or over- 

 c xxiii 



