KENSINGTON PALACE 85 



" the work of Mr, Wise," seems to make it probable that 

 his partner, London, died somewhere about 1700. The 

 next famous garden designer who had to do with Kensington 

 Palace was Bridgeman. He was employed by George IL 

 and Queen Caroline to lay out about 300 acres which were 

 enclosed by them. Bridgeman, in addition to accepting 

 some of the principles of Le Notre, was also the fore- 

 runner of Brown, and was in reality the first landscape- 

 gardener in England of the " Natural " school, though 

 it has been generally thought that Brown invented that 

 method of garden design. Bridgeman's ideas of the pic- 

 turesque led him to do away with much of the stiff 

 formality of the style which was the outcome of a combina- 

 tion of William's Dutch and Le Notre's French tastes. His 

 destruction was not, however, ruthless, for he retained a 

 certain amount of formality near the palace, and the three 

 straight avenues radiating towards Hyde Park. He con- 

 structed the Round Pond, and probably the two Broad 

 Walks, which run north and south, one on the palace, and 

 the other on the park side of the basin. With the exception 

 of a large curtailment to the north-west, Kensington Palace 

 Gardens are now very much as they were planned and left by 

 Bridgeman. He was the inventor of the sunk, or " ha-ha " 

 fence. The old high walls were taken down by him, and in 

 parts replaced by the new kind of boundary, in order not to 

 interrupt clear views of Hyde Park from the palace. Besides 

 his fondness for open glades and close thickets, or wildernesses, 

 Bridgeman had a warm admiration for parterres of flowers 

 and fine stretches of level lawn. For the most part the 

 placing of these embellishments was left to Kent, and were 

 carried out in part by him and afterwards completed by 

 Brown. Kent had been employed by George L as architect 

 for some additions to the palace, and as ceiling and wall 

 painter in its interior. It is difficult to decide whether it 

 was as architect, painter or as garden designer that Kent 

 displayed his lack of taste to the greatest extent. He de- 

 signed the east front of the palace, and the thin pretentious- 



