1 8 INTRODUCTORY. 
of his houses appears to have appropriate surroundings, but, as at Shardeloes, Brasted 
and Compton Verney, a block of masonry standing amid trees, with rolling latvns about it, 
would seem to have satisfied his mind, Adam appears to suggest by his writings, so far 
as they touch the subject, that a building could be so spread out, broken up and 
grouped as to rise naturally out of the ground. Even Blenheim, the work of Vanbrugh, 
whom he admired and was the first to explain and defend, does not achieve this feat. Thus 
it w'as reserved for the next century and Sir Charles Barry to read the lesson of the great 
Roman villas and their gardens. Advocates of formal gardens have been singularly oblivious of 
the real part played by this great architect in retrieving the position of the formal garden in 
England. It may be said to have begun with Mr. Attree’s villa at Brighton, built by him in 
1S29. Loudon, however, realised that in Barry a garden architect had appeared who could 
transform a mere flat expanse into a work of art, as at Trentham (Figs. 23 and 24). This great 
work arose out of the simple elegance of the Villa Attree in the Queen’s Park, Brighton (1824), 
Of Barry’s achievements, that of Shrublands (Figs. 27 and 28) was nearest to his own heart, and it 
must be a prejudiced mind that fails to appreciate the great stairway of a hundred steps, in four 
great flights, that descends from the house on the ridge to the low'er plateau beneath. At Bowood 
(Fig. 21) terraces and gardens were contrived that give effect to the long, low lines of Adam’s 
Diocletian wing (Fig. 21), while at Harewood the great bastioned terrace provides an adequate 
base to an imposing mansion, the work of Robert Adam and John Carr (Figs. 25 and 26). 
Such an apparently simple scheme as the garden forecourt of Bridgewater Mouse showed 
how ideas gained in Italy could be drawn upon profitably to meet modern needs. The imitations 
of those who have reduced the Italian garden to a byword bv bad copies should not mislead us 
as to the true lessons to be learnt from the Gardens of Italv. The great tradition of Old 
English gardening will be best carried on if the study of the past is broad enough to include 
the study of those Italian originals that have been so fruitful a source of inspiration to the garden 
lovers of the past. A. T. B. 
28. — SHRUBLANDS : THE LOWER G.VRDEN AT THE FOOT OF THE GREAT STAIRWAY. 
Sir Charles Barry, R.A., Archilecl, 1S48-1853, 
