Art Out-of-Doors 



pared for them and could not rightly be 



filled with anything else. 



I can cite no better example of this effect 

 than the walled garden which lies in front 

 of Charlecote Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. 

 The Hall is still owned, as it was in Shakes- 

 peare's day, by the Lucy family ; and as 

 it was built in 1558, six years before Shakes- 

 peare's birth, within its walls must have 

 passed his famous interview with Sir Thomas 

 Lucy — if, indeed, the deer-poaching story 

 be counted a true one. 



It is a fine big Elizabethan house, and its 

 courtyard^ must be one of the few still pre- 

 served in England from days when architec- 

 tural gardens were in highest favor. One 

 side of this forecourt — to use the contem- 

 porary term — is made, of course, by the 

 facade of the hall itself. In the centre of 

 its opposite side, facing the portal of the 

 hall, rises a stately gate-house with a large 

 round-arched entrance ; and the rest of the 

 enclosure is encircled by walls which are 



* I am writing of this courtyard from a photo- 

 graph taken some years ago. Just how it may look 

 to-day I do not know. 



148 



