2U A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



each side, is seen a wonderful and unique vista 

 through an arch cut in the thick, straight-clipped 

 Yews, down over the greenest of green grass slopes, 

 across the shimmering river to great clipped trees 

 beyond, and up a straight cut path with only a 

 streak of sky showing between the living walls of 

 green. It is a wonderful sight, especially when 

 seen on a summer's evening with the afterglow of 

 sunset still lingering, and the glorious harvest moon 

 gradually rising, a brilliant ball of orange in the 

 mauve sky. The mysterious light brings out to the 

 full the weird wonder of the place, with its varied 

 depths and shades of green, so subtly blended, and 

 vanishing in the blue blackness of the Yews. Little 

 paths wander over the banks, in many instances 

 perfect green Bowers, for the branches of the trees 

 planted on each side, being twisted downwards to 

 form an archway over the path, make a kind of 

 Pleached Alley. The whole of this strange Garden 

 is cut into three Terraces out of the bank of the 

 River Lee which runs at the foot. 



The broad Terraces are gravelled, while narrow 

 paths ending in steps run down by the walls to the 

 river, bordered by a grassy sward planted with 

 clipped Yews. It is all severe, dark, and solemn, 

 and as one writer says, "its primly cut, methodical 

 Yews with their parallel alleys, carry imagination 

 back to Donne, Herbert, and Burton, such poetry, 

 such prose, so fresh, so scholarly, so contemplative 



