RICHMOND LODGE AND GARDENS 
5 
Merlin’s 
Cave. 
Richmond Lodge then became a favourite residence of George 
and his consort, Princess Caroline of Anspach, especially of the 
latter ; and when George II. became king in 1727, 
of Ans^ch Q ueen Caroline commenced many costly and elaborate 
P ' improvements in the gardens and grounds. Her chief 
professional adviser appears to have been Bridgman, a notable land- 
scape-ga r dener of his time and an apostle of the “ natural ” school. 
He is even said to have ventured so far as “to introduce cultivated 
fields, and even morsels of a forest appearance ” into the Royal 
Garden at Richmond. Bridgman was the first to introduce the sunk 
fence, or ha-ha. This useful device, which provides an effective 
boundary without obstructing the view, is employed to divide the 
present Kew Gardens from the river Thames and from the Old Deer 
Park. 
One of the means adopted by Queen Caroline to give interest 
and diversity to Richmond Gardens was the erection of fanciful 
buildings. The most celebrated of these was Merlin’s 
Cave, a structure which created an extraordinary interest 
at the time it was built, and the echoes of whose fame 
linger even to our own days. It is not easy at the present time to 
appreciate the reasons why this fantastic building should have 
acquired the reputation it did. The chief attraction, possibly, was 
its name. A picture of Merlin’s Cave is given on John Rocque’s 
“ Exact Plan of the Royal Palace Gardens and Park at Richmond ” 
{1754). From this it appears to have been a sort of summer-house 
consisting of three compartments — a large central one flanked on 
either side by a smaller one. Each section had a conical thatched 
roof very much resembling an old-fashioned beehive. Inside the 
building were wax figures of Merlin the Enchanter, Queen Elizabeth, 
a queen of the Amazons, and others. The incongruity of this gather- 
ing is explained by the supposition that the queens were there as 
clients of the magician. This structure, which in its own day did 
not escape ridicule, was built merely of wood and plaster. Accord- 
ing to an old engraving in the Kew collection, it was designed by 
Kent. It shared the fate of similar structures, even of Richmond 
Lodge itself, and was destroyed about 1770. 
By some unexplained circumstance, the name of Merlin’s Cave 
was afterwards transferred to a small stone house and cellar which 
stood a short distance south-west of the present Temperate House. 
