ENTTR^NICE TO bPOCMANCWOOD hCV5E . MI3HOBE VSA 



CHAPTER VI. 



Those who have studied the writings of the Early Victorian school of Landscape 

 Gardeners, and particularly those persons acquainted with the actual work of this period, 

 will have noticed how often the drive, which is generally the most important accessory 

 of a country domain, seems to be treated as an unfortunate necessity. At best its 

 aesthetic possibilities are considered to be limited to the focussing of vistas or views of 

 the residence or park landscape, for which purpose it is arranged in a series of more 

 or less meaningless sinuous curves. Such expedients are seldom satisfactory. They may 

 please on first acquaintance, but, as soon as their artificiality becomes apparent, they 

 partake of the nature of tricks, and " tricks," even in landscape gardening, invariably 

 pall in the end. 



To commence the task of designing and laying down the lines of the drive to a 

 country house with such limited conceptions of its aesthetic possibilities, would be a 

 fatal policy. When we consider the importance of first impressions, and that, in the 

 case of every house which stands in its own grounds, they are gained from the main 

 approach, we at once see that no feature is so capable of giving or, on the other hand, 

 destroying the dignity and sense of fitness in the setting of the mansion. It is also 

 necessary to remember that, on the placing of the drive, will depend the disposition of 

 many other features which have a direct connection with it, or which must be so arranged 

 as to secure privacy from it. It therefore follows that drives and approaches are to the 

 garden designer what the skeleton lines of a conventional design, or even the leading 

 lines of an unconventionalized statue or picture, are to the designer, artist or sculptor. 



Notwithstanding much that has been written to the contrary, the questions of bal- 

 ance, symmetry, flow of line and the other factors which go to make up what we call 

 " composition " in a picture or statue, all have their counterpart in the designing of 

 drives and must receive due attention if the result is to be pleasing. There is, of course, 

 this difference, that, in the painting or sculpture, the designer is unhampered by utilitarian 

 considerations, while in the case of the designer of a drive, many such factors must 

 receive attention if it is to fall naturally and fittingly into the scheme of things. This is, 

 of course, true of all garden planning, but in the present instance, where purely practical 

 considerations come more prominently forward than in any other branch of the subject, 

 except, perhaps, the arrangement of entrances and carriage turns, it is especially necessary 

 to remember the close connection which must exist between the practical and aesthetic. 

 The result must be a compromise but need be none the worse for that, and may prove 



^Esthetic 

 value of 

 carnage 

 drives. 



69 



