OF HERB GARDENS 13 



of the geometrical flower-beds of Victorian days ! The 

 Tudor garden of any pretension also included a wild part 

 where the herbs could be trodden on, and of such a garden 

 there is the well-known description in Bacon's essay. The 

 idea of a wild garden where the sweet-smelling herbs might 

 be trodden on survived into the eighteenth century. In 

 the English Housewife of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth 

 Centuries, there is a description of one of the few genuine 

 old herb gardens still to be seen in England. It is at St. 

 Anne's Hill near Chertsey-on-Thames, originally the home 

 of Charles James Fox, and now the property of Sir Albert 

 K. Rollit, and the herb garden is left very much as it was in 

 Charles James Fox's days. " The herbs are in no particular 

 order and are not raised above the level of the turf walks 

 and offer themselves to be trodden on. There are rosemary, 

 borage, thyme, sage, fennel, mint, parsley, rue, lavender, 

 chives, southernwood, tarragon, savory, hyssop, chervil 

 and marjoram growing in charming confusion enclosed by 

 the thick old-world beech and yew hedges which are probably 

 older than the Georgian house . ' ' One well-known eighteenth- 

 century herb garden must have been unique in its fencing, 

 for this was made entirely of sword-blades picked up on the 

 field of Culloden. One of the most famous eighteenth- 

 century herb gardens was Sir John Hill's in Bayswater. 

 This great doctor advocated that there should be public 

 herb gardens in various parts of England planted with every 

 herb useful in medicine, in the arts or Husbandry, that they 

 should be open always free of expense to all people, and 

 that there should be " some person present to show what 

 was deserved to be seen and explain what was necessary." 

 Till such gardens were made he generously invited any one 

 who was interested to come to his garden at Bayswater 

 " let none fear to apply, the plants are there and every one 

 is welcome." At the end of his Virtues of British Herbs 

 there is a note : " If any one entertain a doubt concerning 

 the plant he would use after comparing it with the figure 

 and description, the gardener at Bayswater shall give a 

 sample of it for asking, and all persons can command the 



