84 



A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



style was in common use, and most of our English gardens 

 could boast of some kind of novel knotted bed. Cavendish 

 writes of Hampton Court, it was " so enknotted it cannot be 

 expressed. ^^ The earth in the knots was either raised a little, 

 being kept in its place by borders of bricks and tiles, or, as was 

 more often the case, it was on the same level as the paths, 

 and then the divisions were made with box, thrift, and so on. 

 Generally, the beds were planted inside their thick margins, 

 with ornamental flowers or small shrubs, somewhat as "carpet 



Aproperkiiqttobcc.iflintlie quartcrofnC-rdcn, orother- 

 wifCjas thcrcisfuHicientioonic. 





KNOT FROM THE GARDENER S LABYRINTH. 



beds " are now laid out ; but, sometimes, instead of plants, 

 they were filled with variously coloured earths. In the 

 household accounts of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1502, 

 there is an entry of 3s. 4d. being paid to "John Wynde, gardener, 

 for diligence in making knottes in the Duke's garden." And 

 in the same year, among the accounts of the fifth Earl of 

 Northumberland, a gardener is mentioned as being employed 

 to " attend hourly in the garden for setting of erbis, and 

 clypping of knottes, and sweeping the said garden cleaner 



