GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS ?i 



English throne, still another continental influence was 

 felt; and as whatever affected English taste affected 

 it on both sides of the Atlantic, the mathematical pre- 

 ciseness of this new school began to tell on the gardens 

 that were being constructed here, at the beginning of 

 the eighteenth century. Vegetable sculpturing or 

 topiary work was a feature of Dutch gardening, like- 

 wise the huge urns or vases set up in prominent parts 

 of the garden; and open iron fences with very impos- 

 ing gates began to take the place of impenetrable 

 walls, in conformity to the growing desire to see 

 abroad into the world. 



Thus we have curiously complex and mixed ante- 

 cedents for the gardens which came into being around 

 such places as Mt. Airy, the home of the Tayloe's, 

 built in 1650; Shirley, of the same year; Tuckahoe, 

 1700 or 1710; Chatham, 1720, with its ten-acre lawn 

 before the house; Stratford Hall, 1725 to 30; and 

 "Belvadera" at Westover, the great home which Col. 

 Byrd built in 1726. Here there was a walled garden 

 of two acres, with boxwood borders and box trees, and 

 Byrd himself loved it so well that here he was buried, 

 his monument marking the center of the garden. 



Col. Randolph's house at Tuckahoe impressed one 

 traveler as so remarkable that he described it minutely 

 in 1729. It was "built on a rising ground, having a 

 most beautiful prospect of James River. On one side 



