224 GARDENS : THEIR FORM AND DESIGN 



Most certainly there is much that we are really proud 

 of in our parks and gardens. Yet this should not allow us 

 to close our eyes to the ideal ones of the future, where we 

 hope to see, added to our own true natural planting, rather 

 more of definite planning. May it not almost be called 

 town as well as garden planning ? For both should of 

 necessity be moulded together. With careful study of 

 success in other capitals, and especially in Paris, we should 

 achieve somewhat more of good design and incident. 



In Battersea Park already there are signs of steady 

 awakening towards a development of garden design. 

 Interest centres not in plants and shrubs alone ; the idle 

 visitor finds a coloured map at each entrance, which 

 directs him to various points of interest. There is the 

 pretty aviary, the " rond point " where music plays, the 

 lake with the summer-houses near by. Most delightful 

 of all, however, is the new " treillage " garden, not far 

 from the river. 



Here is the dawn of what will, if further encouraged, 

 complete the picture of our public parks and gardens. 



Until recently, bearing in mind games and sports, they 

 consisted chiefly of wide open stretches of grass, ugly 

 black iron hurdles, paths that crossed and recrossed over 

 a plain exposed to violent blasts from March winds. 

 Boys and girls were happy, it is true, playing tip-and-run 

 or cricket ; but where could a grown-up Londoner find 

 repose ? The man or woman not bent upon games, but 

 with a wish for change of scene or fresh ideas, found 

 but little of interest to explore in the undefined and 

 straggling shrubberies. These formed the boundaries of 

 the long-grassed, wind-swept plain. Now, in the quiet 

 little Battersea treillage garden, there are many snug 

 corners where an invalid can sit. Shadowed bowers 

 are here, where with a friend, or with a book, he who 

 longs for country air and rest may make believe the garden 



