EARLY TUDOR GARDENS. 



87 



was adopted, as well as the straight-railed beds. This was 

 the "knotted bed," or knot. They were laid out in curious 

 and complicated geometrical patterns. By the year 1520, the 

 style was in common use, and most of our English gardens 

 could boast of some kind of novel knotted bed. Cavendish 

 writes of Hampton Court, it was " so enknotted it cannot be 

 expressed." The earth in the knots was either raised a little, 

 being kept in its place by borders of bricks and tiles, or, as was 



A proper knot to bccaflmthe quartcr<jf ^Garden, brothi> 

 wife, as there isfuHicteiitroome. 



KNOT FROM THE GARDENER'S LABYRINTH. 



more often the case, it was on the same level as the paths, 

 and then the divisions were made with box, thrift, and so on. 

 Generally, the beds were planted inside their thick margins, 

 with ornamental flowers or small shrubs, somewhat as "carpet 

 beds " are now laid out ; but, sometimes, instead of plants, 

 they were rilled with variously coloured earths. In the 

 household accounts of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1502, 

 there is an entry of 35. 4d. being paid to "John Wynde, gardener, 



