146 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



from experience, being himself an old man, and says that the 

 orchard "takes away the tediousnesse and heavie load of three 

 or four score years." What a truly magical power must an 

 Elizabethan orchard have possessed ! Such an introduction 

 makes one keen to leave the kitchen-garden, and traverse again 

 the flower-garden, on the other side of which we should probably 

 find the orchard. It was thoughtfully put on the north-east when 

 it was possible, that the fruit trees might help to shelter the more 

 tender plants of the flower-garden, and some tall forest trees, 

 " Walnuts, Elms, Oaks or Ashes," were planted at a good distance 

 beyond, to shelter but not overshadow the orchard. A garden 

 much on this plan is that of Castle Bromwich laid out about the 

 year 1585. The flower-garden is in front of the house, and on 

 either side lie the fruit and kitchen-gardens concealed from view 

 by high red brick walls, now thickly covered with creepers. These 

 can be seen in the old plan or bird's-eye view, and also in the 

 picture of the garden as it now is, which is taken in the centre 

 or flower-garden, looking towards the wall which shuts out the 

 kitchen-garden. From the central garden a flight of stone steps 

 descend to a lower level, laid out in shrubberies intersected by 

 grass walks and wonderful old cut hedges of holly, yew, box, 

 hornbeam and privet and an archery ground or raised glade of 

 green turf one hundred and eighty yards long. The orchard lies 

 to the south-west of the upper or central garden, from which it is 

 separated, as is the kitchen-garden, by a high brick wall. 



The cost of building a wall all round the fruit-garden was 

 so great as " the extent of an orchard was much larger than 

 that of a garden, and it would require more cost, which every- 

 one cannot undergo/' so instead of brick, mud walls, wooden 

 palings, or a quickset hedge were substituted. But Parkinson 

 recommends a wall of brick or stone, in spite of the expense, 

 " as the gaining of ground and profit of the fruit trees planted 

 there against, will in short time recompense that charge." " On 

 the south wall your tenderest and earliest fruits, as Apricocks, 

 Peaches, Nectarins, and May or early cherries, should be set on 

 the east and north, and on the west, plums and quinces, spread 

 upon and fastened to the walls by the help of tacks and other 

 means to have the benefit of the immediate reflexe of the 



