206 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



is a portrait of him with this inscription on it, " M. Beaumont, 

 gardener to James II., and Colonel James Grahme. He laid 

 out the gardens at Hampton Court and at Levens." Colonel 

 Grahme was a staunch adherent of James II., and after the 

 Revolution of 1689, for political reasons, found it safest to 

 live in the North, on the estate he had lately purchased, and 

 it was during his time, and under the direction of Beaumont, 

 that the gardens assumed the form which they retain almost 

 unaltered to this day. They are, therefore, a most perfect 

 example of the Dutch type of garden of this period. 



One feature which was apparent in every garden of this date, 

 was the bowling-green or alley, which had come into fashion 

 a hundred years earlier. The pastime of bowls was even 

 allowed within the precincts of some religious houses, as there 

 is a notice of a bowling alley belonging to the Monastical church 

 of Durham, in a description, written in 1593, of that house 

 before the suppression. " On the right hand, as yow goe out- of 

 the Cloysters into the Fermery (or Infirmary) was the Commone 



House, and a Maister therof Ther was belonging to the 



Common house a garding and a bowlinge allie, on the back side 

 of the said house, towardes the water, for the Novyces sume tymes 

 to recreat themeselves, when they had remedy of there master, 

 he standing by to se ther good order. "* At Levens there still 

 remain some of the bowls with the Bellingham crest, and as 

 Colonel Grahme bought the place from the Bellinghams in 1687, 

 the bowling-green must have existed some years previously. 

 Many examples of old bowling-greens still remain : there is a 

 very fine one at Chilham Castle, in Kent, 207 ft. long and 126 ft. 

 wide, also good examples at Cusworth and Bramham, in 

 Yorkshire, Holme Lacy in Herefordshire, at Powis Castle and 

 many other places. They were of various forms and sizes, 

 and there was generally a raised bench or terrace on one or 

 more sides of the open green, frequently with a pavilion 

 from which the spectators looked on at the game, while the 

 bowling-alley, on the contrary, was completely hidden by 

 overshadowing trees. A bowling-green at Warwick Castle is thus 

 described in 1673 : " Within the gate ... is a fair Court, and 

 * Rites of Durham. Surtees Society, p. 75. 



