88 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND iv 



rich wrought -iron gates. This garden he 

 destroyed, with no pleasure to himself, as he 

 confesses, and with no motive except that of 

 being in the fashion. He says that he succeeded 

 at much expense in making his grounds like 

 anybody else's and like the fields outside, but 

 lost for ever the seclusion, the charm, the dis- 

 tinction of his old-fashioned garden. Price 

 advocated a threefold division — the garden 

 immediately round the house was to be formal, 

 the garden beyond to be in the landscape style, 

 and the park to be left to itself. His idea was 

 that the transition should be gradual, and this 

 idea was worked upon by Sir Charles Barry in 

 laying out the gardens of Trentham Hall and 

 other places. This, however, seems to me to 

 show a misapprehension of the intention of the 

 formal garden as a matter of design. Instead 

 of the transition being gradual, there should be 

 no question where the garden ends. As Price 

 himself pointed out, half the charm of the older 

 garden was its contrast with the surrounding 

 scenery, the clean line of demarcation given by 

 a good brick wall, or at least an iron railing on 

 a low brick plinth, with the background of the 

 trees beyond. As for the vaunted ha-ha, it is 

 little better than a silly practical joke, and in 

 point of fact was not invented by Kent at all, 

 but was known to the French designers of the 

 seventeenth century, for the ha-ha is named and 

 described as a common feature in gardens in 



