CHAPTER III 
TEMPLES AND OTHER ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES 
The landscape gardening of the eighteenth century was remarkable 
for an excessive use of fanciful structures. Of this there were, per- 
haps, no more striking examples than the Royal demesnes of Rich- 
mond and Kew. We have already seen that the most popular and 
most famous features in the Richmond gardens of Queen Caroline 
were Merlin’s Cave and the Hermitage ; and besides them there were 
temples and other buildings of a similar character. It was in the 
Kew Gardens of 1760 and onwards, however, that this craze for 
ornamental buildings was exhibited in such an extraordinary degree. 
Employed in moderation, classic temples give interest, diversity, 
and a certain distinction to the garden scene. They are often pleasing 
when they terminate a vista or an open glade ; and their straight 
or curving lines, as the case may be, will often emphasise and enhance 
opposite characteristics in the vegetation with which they are asso- 
ciated. But the Kew of the late eighteenth century was dotted over 
with a strange assortment of buildings, which may have given the 
grounds a certain meretricious interest, but could not have contri- 
buted to the harmony of the landscape nor to the general artistic 
effect. In 1763, Sir William Chambers published a fine folio volume, 
in which many of these structures are described and illustrated 
by engravings. From this work some of the particulars here given 
were taken. 
No object in Kew impresses itself so indelibly on the minds of the 
public as the Pagoda. Commenced in the autumn of 1761, and 
The Pa oda * n sp™? of the following year, it has ever since 
been the most prominent landmark in the district. 
It was designed by Sir William Chambers, and built for the Princess 
Dowager of Wales. A year after it was completed, the architect 
congratulated himself on the fact that, notwithstanding its great 
height and the expedition with which it had been built, not the least 
80 
