194 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



French taste was ruling all designers, and if plans were not 

 actually made by the master of the school or his pupils, they 

 were all in his manner, as interpreted by his more remote 

 followers. 



One feature which was apparent in every garden of this date 

 was the bowling-green or alley, which had come into fashion a 

 hundred years earlier. The pastime of bowls was even allowed 

 within the precincts of some religious houses, as there is a 

 notice of a bowling-alley belonging to the Monastical Church 

 of Durham in a description of that house before the sup- 

 pression, written in 1593. " On the right hand, as yow goe 

 out of the Cloysters into the Fermery (or Infirmary) was the 

 Commone House, and a Maister thereof. . . . Ther was 

 belonging to the Common house a garding and a bowlinge allie, 

 on the back side of the said house, towardes the water, for the 

 Novyces sume tymes to recreat themeselves, when they had 

 remedy of there master, he standing by to se ther good order." 1 

 At Levens there still remain some of the bowls with the 

 Bellingham crest, and as Colonel Grahme bought the place 

 from the Bellinghams in 1687, the bowling-green- must 

 have existed some years previously. Many of the old 

 bowling-greens still remain. There is a very fine one at 

 Chilham Castle, in Kent, 207 feet long and 126 feet wide ; also 

 good examples at Cusworth and Bramham in Yorkshire, 

 Holme Lacy in Herefordshire, Campsea Ash in Suffolk, 

 Burley-on-the-Hill in Rutland, at Powis Castle, and many 

 other places. They were of various forms and sizes, and there 

 was generally a raised bench or terrace on one or more sides of 

 the open green, frequently with a pavilion, from which the 

 spectators looked on at the game ; while the bowling-alley, on 

 the contrary, was completely hidden by overshadowing trees. 

 A bowling-green at Warwick Castle is thus described in 1673 : 

 " Within the gate ... is a fair Court, and within that, encom- 

 passed with a pale, a dainty bowling-green, set about with 

 laurel, firs and other curious trees ;" 2 and in 1681 the Duke of 

 Norfolk's garden near Norwich is described by the same 



1 Rites of Durham, Surtees Society, p. 75. 



2 Thomas Baskerville's Journal, MSS. of the Duke of Portland, Hist. 

 MSS. Reports 13. 



