26 GARDEN CRAFT IN EUROPE 



the subject of early English gardens is Alexander Neckham, Abbot of 

 Cirencester. He was born at St. Albans in 1157 and died in 1217, and 

 in early life was a professor at the University of Paris. His account 

 consists of a series of notes entitled De Naturis Rerum (a kind of con- 

 temporary encyclopaedia). His description of the herbs, fruits and flowers 

 to be found in a garden of his day is interesting, and gives a good idea of 

 what was considered necessary for the support of a monastic establishment 

 of the time. Neckham was a compiler rather than an observer or a thinker, 

 and his knowledge of gardens was drawn more from writers of another age 

 and climate than from practical experience in his own country. Classic 

 authors, such as Pliny, were studied for directions as to culture rather than 

 for information on laying out, and so Neckham is silent on the subject of 

 garden design. 



Other writers of this period were Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln and 

 John de Garlande, an Englishman who resided in Paris during the first half 

 of the thirteenth century and who has left a description of his garden there. 

 From this and other accounts it is evident that both in matters of taste and 

 in horticulture France had advanced further than England in garden craft. 

 The two countries were so intimately connected at this period that the 

 accounts already given of French gardens would equally apply to English, at 

 any rate as far as the more important gardens were concerned. 



One of the most important of the gardens surrounding the royal palaces 

 was that of Woodstock, where Henry HI carried out many improvements. 

 He commanded the Bailiff of Woodstock " to make round about the garden 

 of our Queen, two walls good and high so that no one may be able to enter, 

 with a becoming and honourable herbary near our fish-pond in which the 

 same Queen may be able to amuse herself." 



There were also royal gardens at Windsor, Westminster, Whitehall and 

 the Tower. The old maps of London show what a number of magnificent 

 gardens there were belonging to the palaces that bordered the Strand and 

 extended in terraces to the River Thames. 



Considerable advances in horticultural science were made in the reign 

 of Edward I, when the mediaeval prosperity of the English may be said 

 to have culminated. The King and all the nobility devoted much attention 

 to the cultivation of their demesnes, and, at the same time, a class of smaller 

 landowners was growing up who, gradually throv^ing off allegiance to their 



