The General Aspect of the Cotintry. 295 



tlieir manor houses continued to consist of the hall flanked on 

 either side by protecting wings, a courtyard at the back, and 

 long low lines of roofing broken by dormer windows and gables.^ 

 Harrison describes the new houses of the nobility as commonly 

 constructed of brick or stone, and states that glass windows 

 were beginning to be used. 



It was part of an architect's duties to lay out the gardens ; 

 an admirable arrangement, for nothing more tends to show off 

 the bricks and mortar of the buildings than the harmonious 

 surroundings of terrace, panel, and flower bed.^ At the be- 

 ginning of the period under discussion, the gardens were 

 generally walled. Such were those at Nonsuch, belonging to 

 Henry VIH., and those at Theobalds, which, though long 

 obliterated, like most other early Tudor gardens, still exist in 

 the imagination through the description handed down by the 

 German Hentzner. We can picture the statues along the 

 terraces, the walls covered with rosemary, the neatly trimmed 

 yew, holly, and lime hedges, the trellis walks with the yew 

 bushes shaped into cones and pyramids, the fountains and 

 summer houses, and the geometrical flower beds. Thanks to 

 the Flemish settlers in Norfolk, the latter were soon to be a 

 blaze of colour with the gillyflower, the carnation, and the musk, 

 damask, and Providence roses, which were introduced during 

 the latter half of the sixteenth century. Separated from these 

 pleasure grounds was the higher walled fruit garden, where 

 probably would be found the pear, apple, peach, quince, 

 almond, cherry, and filbert trees. Perhaps, too, there were a 

 few plums, introduced by Thomas Cromwell about 1510. Even 

 some of the Zante currants might have taken root there, thus 

 early acting as pioneers for their later invasion of these, shores 

 in 1588.^ Pale gooseberries and pippins, recently introduced, 

 would no doubt have found their first resting-place in the 

 royal gardens of Nonsuch. 



These Tudor pleasances were after all but a replica of those 



1 V'kU R. T. Blomfiekl's thres articles in The Portfolio of 1888, on the 

 Architects of the Renaissance, to which I am indebted for any information. 



2 Vide R. BlomHeld's article in The Portfolio, 1889, p. 231. 



3 Craig and Macfarlane, Hist, of Engl.., Bk. VI., ch. iv. 



