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Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



FIG. 142. -FLOWER-BED AGAINST SERPENTINE WALL 



parts between are crowned with stone obelisks, round which climbing roses have 

 wound their tender way. It is an admirable device for the treatment of a 

 small space, and could be carried out in a simpler fashion in brick without undue 

 expenditure (Fig. 140). 



Among the less usual forms of brick walls a high place must be given to those on 

 a serpentine plan, and for several reasons. If built only about five feet high, they can 

 be constructed a single brick thick. This is not safe with a straight wall of the same 

 height, which should be two bricks thick. The extra length of single brickwork 

 occasioned by the wavy plan only means an addition of about one-quarter to the 

 cubic measurement. This means that a ribbon wall stretching a hundred feet would 

 involve only five-eighths to three-quarters the cost of a straight wall covering the 

 same distance. There are, moreover, cultural advantages. The concave faces on the 

 south side of a serpentine wall serve in some sort as sun-traps, and are therefore kindly 

 to wall fruit. 

 The example at 

 Heveningham Hall 

 (Fig. 141) is nearly 

 ten feet high, and 

 is therefore more 

 than a single brick 

 thick, but even tall 

 walls can be built 

 more cheaply ser- 

 pentine fashion 

 than straight. In 

 laying out a flower 

 border under such a 

 wall it would be 

 well to emphasise 

 the unusual line by 

 waving the outline 

 of the border. The 

 obvious method is 

 a simple reversal F1G T ^ AND A BETTE R OUTLINE. 



of the wavy line, 



as shown in Fig. 142, but that gives a rather weak effect, and it is better to rely on a 

 more geometrical setting-out, as indicated in Fig. 143. As such a flower border would 

 work out very wide at the points where the convex curve is opposed to the concave 

 recessing of the wall, the wise method with all wide borders under walls viz., of 

 providing a narrow path between wall and bed is all the more valuable. This 

 treatment is indicated in both plans. Eighteen inches is a sufficient width for such 

 a path. 



It is difficult to establish the date when serpentine walls first came into vogue, 

 but it is unlikely that it was before the middle of the eighteenth century. Miss 

 Phillimore, in her Life of Wren, when writing of Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire, which 

 was bought by the great architect in his old age, says, " Sir Christopher is said 

 to have designed the kitchen garden wall, which is built in semi-circles." This wall 

 (Fig. I46A) is not serpentine, but set out in half-circles with straight stretches connecting 

 them : the idea is, however, the same. A device of this kind is just one of the things 

 with which the inventiveness of Wren is likely to have played. As, however,. 



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