





48 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



are many, and are not to 



be described here. Neither 



can anything more be said of 



the history of the famous 



house, save that, in the Civil 



Wars, it was held for the 



King, and sacked by the 



Parliament men. 



It will be observed that 



architecture does not end 



with the house. It has its 



due place in the garden also, 



for Montacute has an en- 

 closed garden of terraces, 



and very charmingly are the 



walls and other features made 



a part of the design. The 



terrace walls on either side 



of the east garden, extending 



from the house outward, are 

 simple in character, but 



adorned with obelisks to the 

 piers, and in the midst, on 

 each side, is a temple of stone, 

 its six columns supporting a 

 circular stone roof, with pro- 

 jecting cornice, from which spring three ribs, forming a 

 cupola, crowned with an open ball shaped by two inter- 

 secting circles of stone. The garden-houses will speak for 

 themselves. Here, indeed, are most charming conceptions in 

 stone, which group delightfully witli the surroundings. The 

 mullioned windows, projecting as semi-circular bays, the angle 

 pillars, the embattlements, the chimney, and roof are singularly 

 picturesque. Such buildings as these, with mossy walls and 

 quaint aspect, are worth, in an English garden, many a classic 

 statue, animated bust, or monumental urn, though each in 

 its place forms a fine garden feature, nevertheless. 



The garden or banqueting house is a feature that has 

 distinguished many an old garden. There were four in the 

 Countess of Bedford's seventeenth century garden at Moor Park, 

 in Hertfordshire two at each end of the terrace walk, and two 

 at the ends of the arcades which extended outward from the 



Copyright. 



THE YEW TREE WALK. 



41 Country Life." 



house to enclose the parterre. The arrangement was thus 

 analogous to that at Montacute, and was dear to the old 

 Englishman, whose garden, as Bacon says, was "best to be 

 square," but, in all cases, was in some measure to be retired 

 from the world, yet a place into which the life of the house 

 might be carried. Hence came the banqueting house in the 

 garden, of which many instances might be cited, there being a 

 notable example at Hampton Court. Bacon himself would 

 have had " some fine banqueting house, with some chimneys 

 neatly cast, and without too much glass." The fashion grew 

 more abroad than at home, where the seasons did not always 

 encourage outdoor life. Thus, in the times of Louis Quatorze, 

 the French would often extend their houses into their gardens 

 by building dining and drawing-rooms in the open air,, and 

 creating salons, salks de bal, cabinets de -verdure, and theatres 

 amid the groves where the masques of Moliere were enacted at 



