PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
K NOWING that I was fond both of practical gardening 
and the study of old garden literature, Mr. Percy 
Newberry suggested to me in the spring of 1891 that I should 
edit some articles he had written on the " History of Gardening 
in England down to the Reign of Elizabeth/’ which had 
appeared in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1889, and that I should 
carry on the history from that point. I became so much 
interested in the subject, and had collected so much new 
material, that I decided to enlarge on the original plan, and 
not only to continue the history, but to traverse again all 
the earlier part, drawing my information afresh from the 
original authorities. I wish, therefore, to acknowledge my 
indebtedness to Mr. Newberry, who so kindly put his articles 
and notes at my disposal in the first instance. 
This work does not pretend to be a history of the gardens 
of England, which would, indeed, be a delightful task to carry 
out; therefore many well-known gardens have not been 
mentioned in the following pages, only a few examples having 
been cited to serve as illustrations of each successive fashion, 
and to enumerate others would only have been to multiply 
instances. It is hoped rather that this work, inadequate 
though it is in comparison with the vastness of the subject, 
may in some measure serve as a handbook by which to classify 
gardens, and fix the dates to which they belong. In many cases 
it must always be difficult to assign an exact date to a garden, 
as, although frequently a garden adjoining the house has existed 
from very early times, the changes, though few, have been so 
