i8 



INTRODUCTORY. 



of his houses appears to have appropriate surroundings, but, as at Shardeloes, Brasted 

 and Compton Verney, a block of masonry standing amid trees, with rolling lawns about it, 

 would seem to have satisfied his mind. Adam appears to suggest by his writings, so far 

 as they touch the subject, that a building could be so spread out, broken up and 

 grouped as to rise naturally out of the ground. Even Blenheim, the work of Vanbrugh, 

 whom he admired and was the first to explain and defend, does not achieve this feat. Thus 

 it was reserved for the next century and Sir Charles Barry to read the lesson of the great 

 Roman villas and their gardens. Advocates of formal gardens have been singularly oblivious of 

 the real part played by this great architect in retrieving the position of the formal garden in 

 England. It may be said to have begun with Mr. Attree's villa at Brighton, built by him in 

 1829. Loudon, however, realised that in Barry a garden architect had appeared who could 

 transform a mere flat expanse into a work of art, as at Trentham (Figs. 23 and 24). This great 

 work arose out of the simple elegance of the Villa Attree in the Queen's Park, Brighton (1824). 

 Of Barry's achievements, that of Shrublands (Figs. 27 and 28) was nearest to his own heart, and it 

 must be a prejudiced mind that fails to appreciate the great stairway of a hundred steps, in four 

 great flights, that descends from the house on the ridge to the lower plateau beneath. At Bo wood 

 (Fig. 21) terraces and gardens were contrived that give effect to the long, low lines of Adam's 

 Diocletian wing (Fig. 21 ), while at Harewood the great bastioned terrace provides an adequate 

 base to an imposing mansion, the work of Robert Adam and John Carr (Figs. 25 and 26). 



Such an apparently simple scheme as the garden forecourt of Bridgewater House showed 

 how ideas gained in Italy could be drawn upon profitably to meet modern needs. The imitations 

 of those who have reduced the Italian garden to a byword by bad copies should not mislead us 

 as to the true lessons to be learnt from the Gardens of Italy. The great tradition of Old 

 English gardening will be best carried on if the study of the past is broad enough to include 

 the study of those Italian originals that have been so fruitful a source of inspiration to the garden 

 lovers of the past. A. T. B. 



28. SHRUBLANDS I 



THE LOWER GARDEN AT THE FOOT OF THE GREAT STAIRWAY. 



Sir Charles Barry, R.A., Architect, 1848-1853. 



