50 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



garden into the orchard or meadow. If high hedges and 

 walls were retained in later times on account of their beauty 

 or shelter, it was certainly with a view to security that they 

 were originally adopted. 



" I saw a garden right anoon 

 Full long and broad and everidele 

 Enclosed was and walled wele 

 With hie walles embatailed."^ 



Within the enclosure all was trim and neat. All round 

 against the wall a bank of earth was thrown up, the front of 

 which was faced with brick or stone, and the mould planted 

 with sweet-smelling herbs. At intervals there were recesses 

 with seats or benches covered with turf, " theck yset and soft 

 as any velvet." Low mounds of earth were also made here 

 and there, in the garden, " on which one might sit and rest," 

 and these " benches " were also " turved with newe turves 

 grene." The Httle paths throughout the garden were covered 

 with sand or gravel, and kept free from weeds. Lydgate 

 mentions a garden, in which " all the alleys were made playne 

 with sand."^ 



No garden was considered complete without its arbour, its 

 " privy playing place." They were either set in a nook in the 

 wall, or in a part of the garden sheltered by a thick hedge. 

 The arbour, or " herber," was made of trees thickly inter- 

 twined with climbing plants, to screen those within from the 

 eyes of the intruder. One is thus described in The Flower 

 and the Leaf : 



" And at the last a path of little brede 

 I found, that greatly had not used be, 

 For it forgrowen was with grasse and weede, 

 That well-unneth^ a wighte might it se : 



Thought I, this path some whidar goth, parde, 



And so I followed, till it me brought 



To right a pleasaunt herber well y wrought." 



That benched was and with turfes new 

 Freshly turved, whereof the grene gras. 

 So small, so thicke, so short, so fresh of hew, 



* Chaucer, Romauni of the Rose, 1. 136. 



* The Chorle and the Bird. ^ = scarcely, hardly. 



