194 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
French taste was ruling all designers, and if plans were not 
actually made by the master of the school or his pupils, they 
were all in his manner, as interpreted by his more remote 
followers. 
One feature which was apparent in every garden of this date 
was the bowling-green or alley, which had come into fashion a 
hundred years earlier. The pastime of bowls was even allowed 
within the precincts of some religious houses, as there is a 
notice of a bowling-alley belonging to the Monastical Church 
of Durham in a description of that house before the sup¬ 
pression, written in 1593. “ On the right hand, as yow goe 
out of the Cloysters into the Fermery (or Infirmary) was the 
Commone House, and a Maister thereof. . . . Ther was 
belonging to the Common house a garding and a bowlinge allie, 
on the back side of the said house, towardes the water, for the 
Novyces sume tymes to recreat themeselves, when they had 
remedy of there master, he standing by to se ther good order.” 1 
At Levens there still remain some of the bowls with the 
Bellingham crest, and as Colonel Grahme bought the place 
from the Bellinghams in 1687, the bowling-green must 
have existed some years previously. Many of the old 
bowling-greens still remain. There is a very fine one at 
Chilham Castle, in Kent, 207 feet long and 126 feet wide; also 
good examples at Cusworth and Bramham in Yorkshire, 
Holme Lacy in Herefordshire, Campsea Ash in Suffolk, 
Burley-on-the-Hill in Rutland, at Powis Castle, and many 
other places. They were of various forms and sizes, and there 
was generally a raised bench or terrace on one or more sides of 
the open green, frequently with a pavilion, from which the 
spectators looked on at the game; while the bowling-alley, on 
the contrary, was completely hidden by overshadowing trees. 
A bowling-green at Warwick Castle is thus described in 1673 : 
" Within the gate ... is a fair Court, and within that, encom¬ 
passed with a pale, a dainty bowling-green, set about with 
laurel, firs and other curious trees ;” 2 and in 1681 the Duke of 
Norfolk’s garden near Norwich is described by the same 
1 Rites of Durham , Surtees Society, p. 75. 
2 Thomas Baskerville’s Journal, MSS. of the Duke of Portland, Hist. 
MSS. Reports 13. 
