EARLY TUDOR GARDENS 
75 
entertained one another in discourse.” The arbour or garden- 
house was sometimes of brick, or stone, built like a turret into 
the wall; an early example of arbours like this exists at Loseley, 
in Surrey. There were originally four houses, one at each 
corner of the garden-wall, and three of these remain. Another 
interesting garden of this date is at the Palace, Much Hadharn, 
in Hertfordshire, which, for many hundred years, belonged to 
the Bishops of London. It was also the dwelling-place of 
Katherine, widow of Henry V., after her marriage with Owen 
Tudor, and it was here that Edmund, father of Henry VII., 
was born. The garden at the present day is surrounded on 
two sides by a wall,while the other side is protected by a high 
yew hedge, three yards thick. 
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new flower-bed 
was adopted, as well as the straight-railed beds. This was 
the “ knotted bed/' or knot. They were laid out in curious 
and complicated geometrical patterns. By the year 1520 the 
style was in common use, and most of our English gardens 
could boast of some kind of novel knotted bed. Cavendish 
writes of Hampton Court, it was “ so enknotted it cannot be 
expressed/' The earth in the knots was either raised a little, 
being kept in its place by borders of bricks and tiles, or, as was 
more often the case, it was on the same level as the paths, 
and then the divisions were made with box, thrift, and so on. 
Generally the beds were planted inside their thick margins, 
with ornamental flowers or small shrubs, somewhat as “ carpet 
beds ” are now laid out; but, sometimes, instead of plants, 
they were filled with variously coloured earths. In the house¬ 
hold accounts of the Duke of Buckingham, in 1502, there is 
an entry of 3s. 4d. being paid to “ John Wynde, gardener, 
for diligence in making knottes in the Duke’s garden.” And 
in the same year, among the accounts of the fifth Earl of 
Northumberland, a gardener is mentioned as being employed 
to “ attend hourly in the garden for setting of erbis, and 
clypping of knottes, and sweeping the said garden cleaner 
hourly.” The designs of these knots were very varied. They 
wetfe either geometrical patterns, or fanciful shapes of animals ; 
the intricate geometric designs being evidently the more 
popular, as they occur most frequently in books. (See illus- 
