TERRACES AND TERRACE GARDENS. 



flower garden, ornamental water and green glade all centre on and have their purpose 

 in connection with the terrace scheme. 



The methods to be adopted in this important work have already been briefly 

 indicated in Chapter III. As is there explained, the terrace being the centre round which 

 the pleasure grounds or woodlands are arranged, attention would first be directed to 

 discovering and framing those features visible from it which have in them the elements 

 of the picturesque, or which in any way give character and individuality to the site. 

 " Nothing," says Sedding, " is prettier than a vista through the smooth-shaven green 

 alley or an archway framing a view of the country beyond," and it is for the creation 

 of such effects that the designer must aim in the arrangement of his terraces and par- 

 ticularly their steps and the placing of seats, arbours or bastions so as to emphasize 

 them when created, at the same time taking care that the balance and symmetry of 

 the scheme as a whole are not endangered in the treatment of individual features. 

 Adapting The points of ' special interest having been noted we may proceed to arrange the 



terrace widths and levels of the various terrace plateaux on an axial section line such as that 



levels to fall described in Chapter III., and shown in illustration No. 12. The resulting areas having 

 of ground. been pegged on to the ground, a " grid " of levels should be taken at points either ten, 

 twenty-five or fifty feet apart over the whole of each of them and an average struck 

 which will more accurately determine the finished level of each portion of the scheme. 

 Where the filled-up portion of the terrace is supported by a retaining wall, the fact 

 that the excavated material will occupy more space than it did before removal must 

 be taken into account, but where grass slopes are formed where the level of the ground 

 is raised, this will not be necessary as the amount of surplus material will be just about 

 enough to make up the slopes. 



Termina- More terrace schemes fail through the lack of decisive and marked terminations 



lions of than from any other cause. While a bold and effective treatment may be given them 



terraces. i n their relation to the main facade of the house, and the whole scheme is centralized 



by the planning and scale of symmetrically placed steps and bastions, the ends of the 



terrace are allowed to : ' fade away " as it were into the less conventionally planned 



portions of the grounds. In 

 many cases it has obviously 

 been felt that all was not as 

 it should be, and additional 

 central features, such as 

 heavy and over-elaborated 

 flights of steps, are added so 

 that the eye is drawn away 

 from the weak extremities. 

 Such palliatives are, of course, 

 worse than useless, and 

 nothing but full recognition 

 of the fact that the strongly 

 marked cross lines of the 

 terrace balustrade and paths 

 themselves form a vista, 

 which must be appropriately 



closed at its termination, can supply a corrective. In the plan of the gardens just referred 

 to (No. 10), the door to the kitchen garden would be so designed as to supply the 

 necessary emphasis, and in other cases a small arbour, a boldly proportioned bastion, a 

 seat with a little pentroof over it backed against the wall, or a circular seat like that 

 shown in (No. 106), with a screen hedge behind, might be substituted. 



FIG. 106. THE END OF THE BOWLING GREEN, FOOTS CRAY PLACE. 



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