Small 

 gardens 

 better with- 

 out drives. 



ENTRANCES AND CARRIAGE COURTS. 



Most of the garden plans illustrated in this work include a carriage court. A study 

 of these, together with the sections and descriptions accompanying them, show why each 

 particular form is adopted. 



In many places it is advisable to dispense with a drive or carriage court, such as 

 small houses placed on small plots of land, because the privacy of a garden, and even 

 the possibility of a garden, are destroyed by the ground monopolised by a drive or carriage 

 circle. In my own tiny garden (described later among the examples of garden design) 

 had space been provided to drive up to the front door, there had been practically no 

 garden ; whereas, by placing the house near the road, a space of ground on the South 

 and West is gained as compensation for the occasional short walk from the door to 

 the carriage. 



Where a house is placed near a public road, an arrangement on the lines of the 

 carriage court at Chiswick House (111. No. 46) would be advisable, or better still, a 

 court the entrance to which can be set back well from the line of the roadway, as 

 suggested on the accompanying sketch (111. No. 47). There are also many cases where, 

 even though the house may be further from the road than in either of these examples, 

 it may still be desirable to save the space which would otherwise be given up to a 

 drive and carriage turn and connect the highway with the house by a covered way. 

 Where the windows of the entertaining rooms are so placed that they would inevitably 

 be overlooked from the carriage is an instance of this, or again, where the disposition of 

 the house on the site would otherwise prevent privacy in the pleasure grounds. There 

 are many instances in the suburbs of all large towns where land is too expensive to 

 allow of large grounds where much would be gained and nothing lost by doing away 

 with the " carriage sweep," as it is usually called, and substituting for it a covered way 

 connecting the house with a carriage stance obtained by recessing the boundary wall on 

 either side of the gateway. By a proper attention to the details of the covered way, 

 a most delightful cloistered effect can often be given to the garden on one or 

 both sides of it. 



