CHAPTER V 



EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 



" Sure gates, sweete gardens, stately galleries 

 Wrought with faire pillowes and fine imageries ; 

 All those (O pitie !) now are turned to dust 

 And overgrowne with black oblivion's rust." 



Spenser : Ruins of Time. 



TOWARDS the end of the fifteenth century fresh influences 

 were brought to bear on the nation, and consequently 

 numerous changes set in. The marriage of Edward IV. 's 

 sister with the Duke of Burgundy, and^ through that alHance 

 the increased intercourse with Flanders, led to many alterations 

 in social life. The comparative peace which followed the 

 termination of the Wars of the Roses encouraged a new style of 

 domestic architecture, and comfortable red -brick houses suc- 

 ceeded the old castles. The gardens were no longer of necessity 

 confined within the embattled castle walls. The houses in the 

 new style were not built on the tops of hills, but usually on 

 lower lying ground, and were surrounded by a moat. There 

 was some little space within the moat devoted to a garden, or 

 a few plants were placed in the courtyard. The prolonged 

 peace diminished the necessity of keeping all property within 

 the protecting fines of the moat, and thus the custom came in of 

 having gardens beyond it. With this additional space — for 

 there was frequently more room inside the moat than there had 

 been within castle walls, even if the garden were not made out- 

 side — there was more scope for play of fanc5^ and before long 

 several changes in design came in. 



One of the first innovations was the railed bed — flower-beds 

 enclosed by low fences of trellis-work. These trellis railings 



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