116 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



or "plash," or "impleach," is from the French " plesser," from- 

 " plexum," to plait, infold, or interweave. It is used by 

 Shakespeare, not only for cut and intwined trees, as in this 

 case, but also for braided hair, " their hair with twisted metal 

 amorously impleach'd," in A Lover's Complaint, and for arms 

 enfolded, "with pleacht armes, bendinge down," in Anthony 

 and Cleopatra. 



The plants used to form these shady walks were willows, 

 limes, wych-elms, hornbeam, cornel, privet or whitethorn, also- 

 " the great maple or sycamore tree cherished in our land only 

 in orchards, or elsewhere, for shade and walks." . . . " It is 

 altogether planted for shady walks, and hath no other use with 

 us that I know." * The alley remaining at Hampton Court 

 is of wych-elm. At Theobalds these trees were chiefly used in 

 those alleys where " one might walk twoe rnyle in the walkes 

 before he came to their ends.'' At Drayton, in Northampton- 

 shire, there are two fine specimens of pleached alleys, and 

 the gnarled stems of the wych-elms forming them, bear testimony 

 to their age. The covert walks were sometimes made with a 

 trellis of wood-work, planted with creepers, as we have seen 

 in earlier times, " made like galleries," " covered with y e vine 

 spreading all over, or some other trees which more pleased 

 them."t 



Mounts still formed an important accessory to the garden. 

 Bacon, who, it must be remembered, was " speaking of those 

 (gardens) which are indeed princelike," thus describes the mount. 

 " I wish," he says, "in the middle, a fair mount, with three- 

 ascents, and alleys enough for four to walk abreast ; which 

 I would have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks or 

 embossements : and the whole mount to be 30 feet high,, 

 surmounted by a fine banquetting-house with some chimneys 

 neatly cast." Such banqueting-houses were often made merely 

 for some special occasion, and decorated with ivy and evergreens, 

 to give them the appearance of permanency. This was an age 

 that delighted in pageants, and what more fitting background for 

 their display than the beautiful gardens that this same love of 



* Parkinson, Paradisus. f Hill, Gardener's Labyrinth. 



