156 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND vn 



cut-work. The gallerks should be 8 to 10 

 feet broad and 12 or 15 feet high, the outer 

 side solid, the inner side open as a gallery, 

 with pillars formed by the trunks of the trees, 

 set 4 feet apart, with a low hedge 3 feet high 

 between each trunk. These were generally 

 formed of lime or hornbeam. " Natural 

 arbours " as opposed to arbours of trellis-work 

 were formed of elm, lime, and hornbeam in the 

 same way. A rough framework of wood or 

 iron seems to have been used in the first instance 

 to start the trees on the required lines. After 

 they were fairly set, the trees were brought into 

 shape by wreathing the boughs together and 

 constant clipping. There is a good example of 

 a pleached alley at Drayton House, Northants, 

 "just as Sir John Germain brought it from 

 Holland," as Horace Walpole wrote in 1763. 



Hedges, of course, could only be formed by 

 pleaching. The older gardeners preferred a 

 close-grown hedge, white-thorn or priyet, to any 

 other form of fencing round a garden. It was 

 pleasant to look on, and more difficult to get 

 over than any wall. The Gardener s Labyrinth 

 says " the most commendable enclosure for 

 every garden plot is a quick-set hedge, made 

 with Brambles and white -thorn." Lawson 

 advises a double ditch and a hedge of thorn, 

 though " it will hardly availe you to make any 

 fence for your orchard, if you be a niggard of 

 your fruite." These hedges were planted in two 



