EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 75 



entertained one another in discourse." The arbour or garden- 

 house was sometimes of brick, or stone, built like a turret into 

 the wall ; an early example of arbours like this exists at Loseley, 

 in Surrey. There were originally four houses, one at each 

 corner of the garden-wall, and three of these remain. Another 

 interesting garden of this date is at the Palace, Much Hadham, 

 in Hertfordshire, which, for many hundred years, belonged to 

 the Bishops of London. It was also the dwelling-place of 

 Katherine, widow of Henry V., after her marriage with Owen 

 Tudor, and it was here that Edmund, father of Henry VII., 

 was born. The garden at the present day is surrounded on 

 two sides by a wall,while the other side is protected by a high 

 yew hedge, three yards thick. 



At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new flower-bed 

 was adopted, as well as the straight-railed beds. This was 

 the " knotted bed," or knot. They were laid out in curious 

 and complicated geometrical patterns. By the year 1520 the 

 style was in common use, and most of our English gardens 

 could boast of some kind of novel knotted bed. Cavendish 

 writes of Hampton Court, it was " so enknotted it cannot be 

 expressed." The earth in the knots was either raised a little, 

 being kept in its place by borders of bricks and tiles, or, as was 

 more often the case, it was on the same level as the paths, 

 and then the divisions were made with box, thrift, and so on. 

 Generally the beds were planted inside their thick margins, 

 with ornamental flowers or small shrubs, somewhat as " carpet 

 beds " are now laid out ; but, sometimes, instead of plants, 

 they were filled with variously coloured earths. In the house- 

 hold accounts of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1502, there is 

 an entry of 3s. 4d. being paid to " John Wynde, gardener, 

 for diligence in making knottes in the Duke's garden." And 

 in the same year, among the accounts of the fifth Earl of 

 Northumberland, a gardener is mentioned as being employed 

 to " attend hourly in the garden for setting of erbis, and 

 clypping of knottes, and sweeping the said garden cleaner 

 hourly." The designs of these knots were very varied. They 

 wetfe either geometrical patterns, or fanciful shapes of animals ; 

 the intricate geometric designs being evidently the more 

 popular, as they occur most frequently in books. (See illus- 



