SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 167 



£150 in their report to the Lords of the Treasury." The 

 famous holly hedge has long since disappeared, but traces of 

 the old walks are still observable in the public garden main- 

 tained on the site by a descendent of the great diarist. 



Besides the interest he took in his own garden, Evelyn 

 helped to lay out others. The family seat of the Evelyns, 

 Wotton, in Surrey, he says, was one of " the most magnificent 

 that England afforded, and which, indeed, gave one of the 

 finest examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue." 

 He, however, helped his brother to carry out various altera- 

 tions in 1652. With much deference to so distinguished a 

 gardener as Evelyn, at this distance of time one may be allowed 

 to doubt if all his alterations were improvements. There 

 was a " mount," or " mountaine," and a moat within ten yards 

 of the house. This was taken away by " digging down the 

 mountaine and flinging it into a rapid streame . . . filling up 

 the moat, and levelling that noble area where now the garden 

 and fountain is." In 1658 he went " to Alburie (Albury, near 

 Guildford) to see how that garden proceeded, which I found 

 exactly don to the designe and plot I had made, with the 

 crypta thro' the mountain in the park 30 perches in length, 

 such a Pausilippe is no where in England besides. The Canall 

 was now digging and the vineyard planted." This curious 

 cutting through the hill still exists, besides other traces of the 

 old work, and a very fine yew hedge and long grassy terraces. 

 Again, he shows himself to be the advocate of a holly hedge, 

 in the following extract from his Diary : " 25 Sept. 1672, 1 din'd 

 at Lord John Berkeleys ... it was in his new house or rather 

 palace. . . . For the rest, the fore court is noble, so are the 

 stables, and above all the gardens, which are incomparable 

 by reason of the inequality of the ground, and a pretty piscina. 

 The holly hedges on the terrace I advised the planting of." 

 Berkeley House, which was burnt to the ground, stood on the 

 site of what is now Hay Hill, Berkeley Square, and Lansdowne 

 House. 



Evelyn himself tried to procure new seeds and plants from 

 abroad, and also to make those trees he advocated in his Silva 

 more plentiful ; for many of them, such as the Plane and Horse- 

 chestnut, were still uncommon in this country, and others, the 



