Cottage Gardens in 1677. 81 



cottage in most of the southern parts of England but 

 hath its proportionable garden, so great a delight do 

 most of men take in it, that they may not only please 

 themselves with the view of the flowers, herbs, and 

 trees, as they grow, but furnish themselves and their 

 neighbours upon extraordinary occasions, as nuptials, 

 feasts, and funerals, with the proper products of their 

 gardens. " 



The cottage garden is a subject of special 

 interest, inasmuch as it comes home to so 

 many who have neither the space nor the 

 fortune to cultivate on any ambitious scale. 

 I do not suppose that it is an institution 

 which can be confidently referred to a date 

 much anterior to Worlidge ; and many of the 

 lovelinesses of the sweet small plots which 

 stand before our cottages were unknown 

 even in his day. But the succeeding century 

 saw most of the productions which now grace 

 the cottage garden supplied from various 

 sources. 



Hazlitt, recalling the scenes and memories 

 of his childhood, brings up before us in one 

 of his essays the Montpelier Tea Gardens, at 

 Walworth, as they appeared in 1787. They 



6 



