164 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND mi 



in colour and form might be' quite beautiful. 

 At regular intervals cypress -trees were to be 

 planted, with stems kept bare for 8 or 10 feet, 

 and the spaces between were to be filled up with 

 a hedge of pyracantha cut close against the wall. 

 At the end of the seventeenth century the 

 laying out of groves was regularly included in 

 garden design. In the earlier Renaissance 

 garden little was done in this direction except 

 in the way of mazes ; a space outside the 

 garden was often reserved for a wilderness 

 such as Bacon describes, in which design 

 was purposely abandoned. But the growing 

 tendency was to reduce the garden to a system, 

 till it reached its climax in the school of Le 

 Notre, and the bosquet or grove of regular 

 form took the place of the wilderness. Chapter 

 vi. of The Theory and Practice of Gardening 

 is entirely devoted to "woods and groves." 

 " Their most usual forms are the star, the 

 direct cross, the Saint Andrew's Cross, and 

 goose-foot.^ They nevertheless admit of the 

 following designs, as cloisters, quincunxes, 

 Bowling-greens, Halls, cabinets, circular and 

 square compartments, halls for comedy, covered 

 halls, natural and artificial arbours, fountains, 

 isles, cascades, water galleries, green galleries, 

 etc." These groves were to be laid out with 



^ The " goose-foot," /xirre- <iV/V, consisted of three avenues radiating 

 from a small semicircle. The three great avenues at Hampton Court, 

 with the semicircular garden, form a goose-foot. 



