Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



^ 



the garden. It is an odd commentary on the levels of roads before Macadam's day 

 that the surface of this old highway is quite twenty feet below the surrounding ground, 

 and now forms the bottom of a woodland dell in Mr. Triggs' garden. Common lands 

 interspersed with patches of woodland— all that now remain of the great forest of 

 Woolmer — stretch away from the house for many miles. It is not too fanciful to 

 guess that the garden of Little Boarhunt was the scene of a charming incident 

 recorded by Gilbert White in the Htstory of Selborue. " As Queen Anne was journey- 

 ing on the Portsmouth road, she did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal 

 regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and reposing 

 herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, saw with great complacency and 

 satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before 



her, consisting then of about five hundred 

 head." Mr. Inigo Triggs has smoothed 

 many banks in the making of his garden, but 

 the red deer have given place to pigeons. As 

 lately as June, 1910, Little Boarhunt was a 

 smaU farmhouse of no especial merit, with 

 a barn and yard, but no garden. All the 

 building and the remodelling of the farm- 

 yard was done in six months ; by the spring 

 of 1911 the garden had grown up, and it 

 now looks old-established. 



The note of gaiety is struck at the en- 

 trance. Mr. Triggs has chosen to border the 

 drive with broad beds full of herbaceous 

 plants, instead of with the dull shrubs that 

 too often find a place there. The farmyard 

 to the south of the house was excavated to 

 make a sunk rose garden. Its retaining walls 

 of rough stone are brilliant wdth saxifrages, 

 pinks and veronica. Herbaceous borders sepa- 

 rate the surrounding paths from the low en- 

 closing walls, which are carried up with square 

 stone piers supporting timbers clothed with 

 climbing roses. Particular attention is 

 drawn to this wall treatment, which is as 

 as it is uncommon. Further 

 is made to it in Chapter X. 



FIG. 



-A SIMPLE BRICK-BUILT DOVECOTE. 



delightful 



reference 



The wall is broken at its south corner by 

 a garden-house, inexpensively built a single brick thick, with its faces cemented. In 

 the neighbouring wall is a small old wooden hand-gate of satisfactory construction 

 (Fig. 68). The sunk garden itself is an admirable example of the wealth of interesting 

 detail that can be employed in a small space without creating anj^ feeling of overcrowding. 

 It is divided by a little brick canal, served by rain-water collected from the roof. This 

 rill widens at its middle into a dipping pool, of practical use in watering the garden, 

 and from it rises a slender brick column surmounted by a little Italian figure of a boy 

 with a fish. The four beds for standard roses are divided by narrow brick paths, set 

 out to differing designs. Altogether the garden is as pretty as can be, and has a further 

 pleasant feature in the brick dovecote, which comes at the end of the north enclosing 

 waU. It must be explained that the plan of Little Boarhunt shows to the south-west 



