TOPIARY 97 



may chide and call such garden work child's play. Even 

 he, however, could hardly fail to love and admire that 

 stately narrow yew-walk which leads to the old house at 

 Cleeve Prior. Are they the twelve Apostles ? or do the old 

 yews represent the monks in their cowls who, tradition 

 tells, inhabited the place before the dissolution of the 

 monasteries ? Whomsoever the figures are intended to 

 resemble, as they lovingly hold hands and ;seem to cast 

 the strength of protection upon the quaint old gabled 

 house, they form a most effective approach. The vista 

 of the house at one end, and the entrance-gate and a 

 picturesque barn beyond at the other, is a joy to any 

 painter. The proportions, too, of yews, path, and house- 

 gable, are excellent, and a future garden designer should 

 take measurements and make note of every detail. 



Another ancient garden, which takes us back to days 

 when men wove ideas borrowed from the New Testa- 

 ment into all crafts, is Packwood, in Worcestershire ; 

 and this garden, amongst others, may perhaps have 

 inspired that very symbolic modern one at Old Place, 

 Lindfield. In neither of these gardens is there exaggera- 

 tion of clipped trees. Time itself has softened the first, 

 and the yews have regained more or less their own free 

 growth, although the original plan remains to tell its 

 story. The garden at Lindfield, too, although formal in 

 design, and possessing two characteristics of such ancient 

 work, the " Mount" and the " Wilderness," is treated in 

 a natural way. 



Thus we are led to hope, with regard to this greatly 

 discussed art of tree-clipping, that even those most 

 averse from it may allow some beauty besides poetic story 

 in the specimens just alluded to. 



Levens, where so many shaped trees abound, interest- 

 ing as it is historically, might well be considered too 

 exaggerated and crowded a type of topiary work to 



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