114 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



At Drayton, an Elizabethan house in the same county as 

 Kirby, there is a^. wide terrace against the outer wall of the 

 garden with a summer-house at each end, as well as a terrace 

 in front of the house, and other examples exist. 



The " forthrights," or walks which formed the main lines of 

 the garden design, were " spacious and fair." Bacon describes 

 the width of the path by which the mount is to be ascended as 

 wide " enough for four to walk abreast," and the main walks 

 were wider still, broad and long, and covered with " gravel, sand 

 or turf."* There were two kinds of walks, those in the open 

 part of the garden, with beds geometrically arranged on either 

 side, and sheltered walks laid out between high clipped hedges, 

 or between the main enclosure wall and a hedge ; there 

 were also the " covert walks," or " shade alleys," in which the 

 trees met in an arch over the path. Some of the walks were 

 turfed, and some were planted with sweet-smelling herbs. 

 " Those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by 

 as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three that 

 is, burnet, wild thyme and water-mints ; therefore you are to 

 set whole alleys of them to have the pleasure when you walk 

 or tread." t It appears from a passage in Shakespeare, 

 I Henry IV., act ii. scene 4, that camomile was used in the same 

 way. Falstaff says, " For though camomile, the more it is 

 trodden on the faster it grows; yet youth, the more it is 

 wasted, the sooner it wears." 



In contrast to this the " closer alleys must be ever finely 

 gravelled and no grass, because of going wet/' { Thomas Hill 

 writes, the " walkes of the garden ground, the allies even 

 trodden out, and leuelled by a line, as either three or four foote 

 abroad, may cleanely be sifted ouer with riuer or sea sand, to 

 the end that showers of raine falling, may not offend the 

 walkers (at that instant) in them, by the earth cleauing or 

 clagging to their feete." Parkinson also has something to say 

 about walks : " The fairer and larger your allies and walks be, 

 the more grace your garden shall have, the lesse harm the 



* Lawson, A New Orchard. 1597. ^ Bacon, Essay. 



f Bacon, Essay. Gardener' s Labyrinth 



