212 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



Imbroidery in the middle and with Borders of Grass on the 

 outsides. This sort of Design is very agreeable and serves for 

 a great ornament to a garden, especially where the grass-work 

 is well kept up, the Box well order'd, and the grass-work well 

 cut ; and to give it yet a farther Beauty, you may fill the 

 Flourishings and Branch-work with a black earth, provided 

 the Paths' or Alleys be cover'd with a yellow or white sand, 

 different colours serving to set off the Parterre the better." 

 In some cases the plot was filled with one design, in others 

 it was divided into four, and the pattern repeated in each 

 section. 



Between the parterres were borders, formed either of a 

 sanded path with a strip of grass or flowers, on either side, 

 or shrubs placed at intervals, but the " most common " borders 

 " are wrought with a sharp rising in the middle, like the back 

 of an ass, and set with yews, shrubs, and flowers." Canons 

 Ashby, as it is at the present day, is a good example of th's 

 date of garden, and the parterres, as shown in the plan kindly 

 made by the present owner. Sir Henry Dryden, are such as 

 might have been seen in any garden of this date, though the 

 design perhaps is more simple than in many of them. The 

 garden, originally made in 1550, was altered in 1708, and has 

 defied the changes of fashion for nearly two centuries. It is 

 just such a garden as Celia Fiennes described as " neatly 

 kept, with fine gravel walks, grass-plotts and beyond a garden 

 of flower-trees and all sorts of herbage and store of fruits." 



Incidental remarks in that lady's journal, throw light upon 

 Town-gardening. Before such great difficulties in the way of 

 smoke had to be contended with, town-gardens needed no 

 more care than country ones, and many town-houses had fine 

 ones attached to them. When gardens were simple, small, and 

 enclosed, there was no reason why as pleasant and secluded 

 ones should not be made in towns as in the open country. 

 We still find old-fashioned gardens in the Cathedral towns, 

 or in some few large market-towns, where smoke and 

 overcrowding have not destroyed them. But long ago, when 

 each good house had its garden, the aspect of the towns 

 must indeed have been different. Public parks and gardens 



