FLORA 
AND SYLVA. 
Vol. III. No. 27.] JUNE, 1905 [Monthly. 
MR. MERVYN MACARTNEY ON 
GARDEN DESIGN. 
A PAPER was recently read by Mr.Mervyn 
Macartney before the Royal Institute of 
British Architects, entitled " Garden 
Architecture," and its reading is a wel- 
come change from the dreary repetitions 
on this subject. It is new to find a writer 
frankly admitting the ugly and inartistic 
results of much of the work done in the 
name of architectural gardening. It is 
all the more welcome because most 
writers on this subject do not take the 
trouble to study the practical outcome 
of their views. 
" There are some of the largest and most elaborate 
creations that fail to excite pleasure in my mind, 
such as Trentham, Longford fiastle' Ashby^Drum- 
lanrig, and even Versailles and Pamphile Doria. 
It is diffcult to say straightway nsohy it is so, and 
I feel it is rather presumptuous on my part to 
state such a proposition ; but I am sure that Sir 
Charles Barry must have been disappointed at the 
result of his labours at Trentham. In the case of 
Versailles there is a sense of enormous effort with 
little result. Vast terraces, lagoons of water, and 
huge fountains produce no satisfactory effect, only 
a sense of futility — a useless expenditure of labour 
and money without adequate return — and therein 
lies the keynote to the whole matter. Compare Ver- 
sailles or Trentham with Villa d'Este, Montacute, 
or Melbourne, and one feels that failure is writ 
large over both the former conceptions.'" 
Here is the truth — enormous waste to 
procure effects sometimes so bad that 
hideous is not too strong a term to de- 
scribe them. And if they strike an 
architect as bad, what of the planter 
whose labours are paralysed by this 
waste, by these useless impedimenta, 
by beds that are impossible to plant with 
any hope of good effect or even of good 
growth of the things planted ? Mr. Mac- 
artney sees the difference between gar- 
dens like Haddon and Bramshill, and the 
stereotyped formal gardens of our own 
day, but does not state the cause for this 
difference. 
The reason why these older English 
gardens satisfy the critic is that they 
were made to suit the nature of the 
ground, whereas the spectacular gar- 
dens he deplores are "built drawings." 
They were in many cases made before 
the stereotyped plans were as accessible 
to " the young man in the office " as 
they now are. They grew out of the 
ground itself, as all well-designed gar- 
dens must. No garden is good or even 
tolerable which does not form a picture, 
or rather a series of pictures in the course 
of the year. 
" So it is with Wilton and Melbourne, and herein 
lies a difference from the Italian examples. They 
generally owe a great deal to position : perched on 
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