VII FISH-PONDS, PLEACHING, ARBOURS 151 



submit to this treatment — such as lime, horn- 

 beam, yew, box, holly, white-thorn, and privet, 

 kinds that are " humble and tonsile," as an old 

 writer calls them. Pleaching must be dis- 

 tinguished from another old word still in use, 

 " plashing," which refers to the half-cutting of 

 the larger branches and bending them down to 

 form a hedge. Markham explains ''plashing" 

 to be '' a half-cutting or dividing of the quicke 

 growth almost to the outward barke, and then 

 laying it orderly in a sloape manner, as you see 

 a cunning hedger lay a dead hedge, and then 

 with the smaller and more plyant branches to 

 wreathe and bind in the tops." Pleaching was 

 employed to form mazes, arbours or bowers, 

 green walks, colonnades, and hedgerows, besides 

 the infinite variety of cut-work in yew and box. 

 Mazes were formed all through the seven- 

 teenth century. The one at Hatfield is a perfect 

 instance. The maze at Hampton Court is 

 another familiar example. This appears to have 

 been planted in the time of William III., and it is 

 not probable that many were laid out after that 

 date. The bower or green arbour existed in the 

 mediaeval garden, but probably in a somewhat 

 artless form. The earliest account of arbours is 

 found in The Gardener s Labyrinth ; the writer 

 classifies arbours as upright or winding. The 

 upright arbour was simply a lean-to, the winding 

 or arch arbour an independent arbour standing 

 by itself. At the end of the seventeenth century 



