CHAPTER V 
EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 
“ Sure gates, sweete gardens, stately galleries 
Wrought with faire pillowes and fine imageries ; 
All those (O pitie !) now are turned to dust 
And overgrowne with black oblivion’s rust.” 
Spenser: Ruins of Time. 
T OWARDS the end of the fifteenth century fresh influences 
were brought to bear on the nation, and consequently 
numerous changes set in. The marriage of Edward IWs 
sister with the Duke of Burgundy, and through that alliance 
the increased intercourse with Flanders, led to many alterations 
in social life. The comparative peace which followed the 
termination of the Wars of the Roses encouraged a new style of 
domestic architecture, and comfortable red-brick houses suc¬ 
ceeded the old castles. The gardens were no longer of necessity 
confined within the embattled castle walls. The houses in the 
new style were not built on the tops of hills, but usually on 
lower lying ground, and were surrounded by a moat. There 
was some little space within the moat devoted to a garden, or 
a few plants were placed in the courtyard. The prolonged 
peace diminished the necessity of keeping all property within 
the protecting lines of the moat, and thus the custom came in of 
having gardens beyond it. With this additional space—for 
there was frequently more room inside the moat than there had 
been within castle walls, even if the garden were not made out¬ 
side—there was more scope for play of fancy, and before long 
several changes in design came in. 
One of the first innovations was the railed bed—-flower-beds 
enclosed by low fences of trellis-work. These trellis railings 
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