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NO celebration of the three-hundredth anniver- 
sary of Shakespeare's death would be com- 
plete without a Shakespearean garden. The 
works of the great dramatist abound in plant lore and 
garden craft, and prove beyond question that he knew 
and loved the plants and gardens of his time. 
The era in which Shakespeare lived and worked was 
one particularly favorable for gardening, as well as for 
literature and the other arts. It was only just previous 
to this period that the nobility began to erect their great 
Garden House and Pavilion at Montacute. 
country mansions, and the garden was considered a very 
important adjunct. Probably at no other time has land- 
scape gardening taken a higher rank, the garden giving, 
as it did, a special and finished character to the building, 
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Across the Pond ai Montacute. 
and being an essential part of the general scheme. The 
architect-builder of the house was usually the designer of 
the garden, John Th&rpe being one of the most famous 
architects of the period, who designed many estates com- 
bining house and grounds. That the landscaping was 
considered no mean task is evidenced by Bacon's state- 
ment that "Men come to build stately sooner than to gar- 
den finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection." 
It is natural, therefore, that the history of the architec- 
ture and gardening of the Elizabethan era should be 
closelv related. Religious persecution in parts of Europe, 
combined with other causes, brought mai v gardeners, as 
well as building artisans and artists, to England. On the 
other hand, traveling on the Continent was popular 
among the wealthier classes, and comparatively safe. 
Consequently, many foreign ideas were introduced, espe- 
cially those of the Renaissance, and the style of architec- 
ture began to change from the Gothic to the more classi- 
cal English Renaissance, resulting in what is now known 
as the Elizabethan style. The influence of these changes 
was soon felt in the garden which combined ideas of the 
Tudor period with those obtained from abroad. This 
fusion of ideas happily resulted in a style purely national, 
much better adapted to England than a strict adherence 
to the gardens of any other country. Some of the prin- 
cipal Tudor features that remained were the railed flower 
bed, the mount, topiary work, hedges, simple knots and 
arbors, pleached alleys, arched galleries, walls, and trel- 
lised fences. Europe contributed the terrace, the foun- 
The Garden and Maze at Hatfield House, 
1605 and Restored. 
Herefordshire, Built 
tain, the labyrinth or maze, and the more elaborate arbor 
and parterre, while architecture and sculpture became 
more common in gardens through foreign influence. 
It should perhaps be mentioned first that the ideal 
Elizabethan garden was square, or, if oblong, divided 
into square parts. The building, with its wings and fore- 
court, dominated the design, the balustraded terraces 
which formed the connecting link between house and 
garden, dropping to the garden grade by means of a grassy 
slope, or a brick or stone retaining wall. The walks, 
called "forthrights," made of sand, gravel, or turf, were 
straight and very broad. "Covert" alleys at the sides were 
very popular, sometimes formed by vines on arched trel- 
lises, and sometimes by pleached alleys, the latter made 
by interweaving overhead the branches of the trees on 
either side of the walk. Willows, lindens, elms, horn- 
beam, cornel, privet, and hawthorn were popular for this 
purpose. 
Elowers were used in abundance in the knots or par- 
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