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A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



green at the " George Inn." These pieces of good turf must have 

 added much to the beauty of the gardens, and in the small towns 

 served as a public garden and recreation ground. 



Every garden also contained one or more sundials. They 

 formed, as a rule, a centre to the design, and were in themselves 

 a fitting ornament to a garden. The sundial has frequently- 

 survived destruction, when all other traces of an old garden 

 have been obliterated. At Exton, in Rutlandshire, the old 

 sundial stands in front . of the house which was burnt down, 



SUNDIAL, EUSTON, WITH THE ARLINGTON ARMS, ABOUT 1671. 



almost the only vestige of the garden which formerly lay in 

 front of its windows. In some dials the owner's coat of arms 

 was used to form the style, or in others the motto of the 

 family was inscribed round the dial, which is often a great help 

 in fixing the date of the construction. Occasionally an entire 

 garden was laid out like a sundial, the figures being planted 

 in box or yew. There is a good example of one after this 

 design at Wentworth Stainborough, which was made in 1732, in 

 which the letters are of box and the st}'le of yew. 



