AND CELEBRATED GARDENS 



largely to the monks. They were able and industrious gardeners, 

 and often skilled in the application of the herbs and simples they 

 so assiduously cultivated ; and in remote neighbourhoods, in the 

 absence of the leech or apothecary, must frequently have been 

 called upon to undertake, not only the cure of souls, but the cure 

 of bodies also. We owe a good deal to the " monks of old " ; their 

 place knows them no more, though such names as " Grey Friars " 

 and " Covent "or Convent ' Garden " are suggestive of the old 

 Romish times. 



It would seem from the illuminated manuscripts in the British 

 Museum and elsewhere, that the English mediaeval gardens were, 

 for the most part, square in shape, and had grass plots, sanded 

 walks, and little alleys and borders. Box played a great part in 

 the outlining of these borders, and there was generally in each 

 domain a " Privy Garden," or playing place. A little later there 

 was invariably a bowling-green. Among the characteristic features 

 of the Tudor garden may also be cited the " Mount," by means 

 of which in a flat country a view of the landscape could be 

 obtained. 



It was ascended by a winding path, described by an old writer as 

 being " like a cockle-shell, to come to the top without paign." 

 Mounts did not go out of fashion until the boundary wall was 

 superseded in the eighteenth century by the sunk fence, or " Ha ha." 

 In large Tudor establishments there was often a gallery leading 

 from the great house to the pleasure-grounds, by which they 

 could be reached under cover ; and even in the time of Erasmus 

 these and other garden buildings were sometimes frescoed inside, 

 a fashion which came from Italy. Erasmus speaks of a garden 

 with such galleries, the doors painted in imitation of grass and 

 flowers, and the walls representing woods. At a later period 

 Evelyn describes one which he had seen at Rucil, (that he 

 has the bad taste to commend) in which " the arch of Constantine 

 was painted on a wall in oyle as large as the real one at Rome, 

 so well done that even a man skilled in painting may mistake it 

 for stone and sculpture ; " and so cleverly was the sky painted in 

 the opening of the arch, that birds dashed themselves against it, 

 thinking to fly through. 



The old game of bowls is comparatively little played nowadays, 

 except by rustics in remote country villages ; but at the time of 



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