HAM HOUSE 185 



the sweetest river in the world, must needs be 

 admirable." 



This shows that the Gardens of Ham possessed 

 every whimsical device of that period a time 

 which carried its taste for Garden cult to a fine 

 art. 



The design of these Gardens at Ham is interest- 

 ing from many points of view, but chiefly as illus- 

 trating that form of Garden, the plan of which 

 resembles a house, room within room, as they 

 were built in Elizabeth's days, distinctly suggest- 

 ing, in some ways, the Roman type of Gardens, 

 which " were only the amplification of the 

 House." 



There is a feeling of completeness gained by 

 carrying the design of the house into that of the 

 Garden, making them entirely belong to each 

 other. Besides which, this room-like arrangement 

 of a Garden provides the charm of perpetual change, 

 the Garden never being seen as a whole, but only 

 as it were room by room, the hedges taking the 

 place of the walls. 



This idea of a Garden within a Garden is seldom 

 if ever used now. Fine open spaces with long, 

 wide Flower-borders are preferred, being better 

 adapted to show to advantage the modern develop- 

 ment of flowers and the genius which the twentieth- 

 century Gardener possesses of growing tropical 

 plants in this changeable climate. 



