200 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND ix 



houses were built, in most cases from the designs 

 of architects, and therefore with some regard to 

 their effect. Sir W. Chambers's building at 

 Kew, now used as a museum of woods, or the 

 orangery at Mount Edgcumbe show that a 

 conservatory or hot-house need not be the 

 hideous thing to which the gardener has 

 brought it. The hot-house or conservatory is 

 necessary no doubt, but it is surely not neces- 

 sary to reduce the mullions to mere strips of 

 wood, and the power of the sun would not be 

 seriously reduced by a few sash-bars instead 

 of those vast sheets of blazing glass which 

 inevitably spoil the beauty of any garden. 



The carpenter found plenty of work to do 

 in the old formal garden. In the first place 

 he had to make the solid frames of wood, 

 the deamhulationes ligneae horti^ which were 

 necessary for the green walks and arbours. 

 These frames were made of timber, wrought 

 and square, nailed or pinned together, and 

 painted green, with curved ribs for the arched 

 tops. Instances are shown in De Caux's views 

 of Wilton and several of Logan's plates, such 

 as the view of Wadham Gardens. These 

 framings became very elaborate at the end of 

 the seventeenth century. Porticoes, colonnades 

 with cornices and pediments, niches and shells, 

 domes, lanterns, and other architectural details 

 were carried out in wainscot and deal, and 

 the plain spaces filled in with trellis- work of 



