620 



GEOMETRICAL FLOWER-GARDENS. 



of it, " that it was too small to inhabit, 

 and too large to hang one's watch in." 

 Its courts were then, as now, dignified by 

 its picturesque cedars ; and its gardens, 

 so early as 1770, were noted for the 

 purity of the Italian style in which they 

 were laid out. The house was remodelled 

 in 1796, under the direction of Mr Wyatt, 

 afterwards Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, by the 

 addition of two wings. The Italian gar- 

 dens were at the same time greatly altered, 

 by the removal of " certain puerile con- 

 ceits" not considered suitable to the taste 

 of the day. The style was, however, 

 strictly retained. A further change took 

 place in 1814-15, under the direction of 

 Lewis Kennedy, Esq., at that period the 

 leading landscape-gardener in England. 

 Slight alterations and improvements have 

 since taken place, and the gardens now 

 exist as shown in our Plate. It is some- 

 what singular that a place of so much 

 consequence as Chiswick Villa should 

 have withstood the shock of the revolu- 

 tion in style, and that it should remain 

 so perfect a specimen of the Italian 

 school, and be in itself probably the only 

 residence in Britain which has retained that 

 style in anything like its original purity. 



The flower-garden is of a semicircular 

 form, placed in front of a splendid con- 

 servatory, elevated upon a well-propor- 

 tioned terrace base. This conservatory is 

 approached in front — at the centre, as well 

 as at the two ends — by flights of steps. 

 It is kept continually gay with flowers, 

 and has long been remarkable for the ex- 

 cellence of cultivation and high keeping 

 which is displayed, even to the minutest 

 points. The greater part of the beds are 

 cut out on grass, and bordered with gravel- 

 walks. The two central or principal par- 

 terres are on gravel, with box edgings. 

 The squares along the sides of the outer 

 walk, as well as two within the parterre, 

 are pedestals, on which excellent specimens 

 of sculpture are placed ; and behind 

 those, by the side of the semicircular 

 walk, are planted three rows of standard 

 roses. 



Plate XXX. shows the ground-plan of 

 the large palm-stove at Kew, and the 

 flower-garden surrounding it, which in 

 part, or as a whole, might, with slight 

 modifications, be adapted to the grounds 

 around a highly architectural mansion. 

 This magnificent structure, of which Plate 



XIV. is a view, stands on rather elevated 

 ground, near to the artificial piece of 

 water originally formed by Sir William 

 Chambers, — a portion of which we have 

 shown in front, with its parapet-wall 

 bordering the principal gravel-walk which 

 leads to this conservatory. As will be 

 seen by our Plate, the conservatory stands 

 very properly upon a terrace of gravel, 

 ascended to by flights of stone steps op- 

 posite each of the four entrances. The 

 parterres, according to a notice of these 

 gardens which appeared recently in the 

 " Quarterly Review," were laid out by 

 Mr Nesfield, and, as a geometric design, 

 are very much to our mind, but for such 

 a situation extremely faulty, in being 

 almost devoid of artistic ornament. In 

 this respect Mr Nesfield may not be to 

 blame, for we can hardly think that a 

 landscape-gardener of his eminence would 

 have neglected the introduction of vases, 

 fountains, parapets, and appropriate ba- 

 lustrading, and all these of the most 

 classic style. Grass terraces, when sub- 

 stituted for mural ones, bespeak poverty 

 of imagination or of purse. We would 

 have expected to have seen the tops of the 

 pilasters, which form the panelling of the 

 parapet-wall by the water side, furnished 

 with vases— the grass terrace substituted 

 by a polished ashlar wall, and open balus- 

 trading on top — two colossal vases, on 

 elevated pedestals, occupying the circular 

 beds of verbenas on each side of the 

 principal entrance walk, as well as cor- 

 responding ones at each end of this mag- 

 nificent structure — two fountains occupy- 

 ing the two larger circles in the angular 

 parterres on the opposite side of the 

 building, with a vase in each of the 

 smaller gravel circles flanking the semi- 

 circular part of this garden. The space 

 here dedicated for flower-garden display 

 is by far too limited, either for the size of 

 the building, or the gardens of which it 

 forms a part ; for although the collection 

 of plants, botanically speaking, in the 

 Kew Gardens, is richer than in any other 

 establishment in the world, still it ought 

 to be borne in mind that this is almost 

 the only part of the whole dedicated to 

 flower-garden purposes, and, as a royal 

 and public institution, it should have 

 been, in its kind, as perfect as the con- 

 servatory to which it is attached is, or the 

 Royal Gardens at Frogmore are in theirs. 



