222 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
green of the sheltering yews in winter, the secluded alley, or the 
woodbine-covered arbour, have no charm when set down in 
these stiff lines of black and white. The garden at Ingestre was 
described by a traveller, John Loveday, of Caversham, in 1732. 
The house, he says, is situated on the side of a hill, “ the 
Gardens higher, They are large—laid out into the grandest 
walks between the stateliest Trees imaginable, Hares in abun¬ 
dance about the woody Garden, a Building erecting in the 
higher part for a Prospect . . . which together with the Church 
is represented in Plot p. 299.” The picture Loveday refers to 
is here reproduced, and illustrates in a striking manner how 
inadequate these designs are to convey any idea of the beauties 
of the originals. 
It has been said that it was the decadence of art in the 
formal style which brought about its own fall, but it is difficult 
to imagine anything more charming than some of the gardens 
of the time of Queen Anne. Their chief characteristic was 
the prevalence of long walks between cut trees, not exactly 
hedges, but trees clipped up to a certain height, and allowed 
to feather naturally at the top. A most curious example of this 
is to be seen at Down Hall, in Essex. The trees are cut to the 
height of sixty or seventy feet; the path between them is 
about fifteen feet wide, and seven hundred and eighty long, 
and closes with a view of Hatfield Broad Oak at the end. 
This garden was made when the place belonged conjointly to 
Prior, the poet, and Harley, Lord Oxford. 1 Prior wrote a 
humorous poem on the occasion of his first visit to “ Derry 
down down, hey derry down/’ as he called it. He expected to 
find there 
“ . . . Gardens so stately, and arbours so thick, 
A portal of stone, and a fabric of brick.” 
But on reaching his destination, the poet exclaimed to his 
friend : 
“ O Morley, O Morley ! if that be a hall, 
The fame with the building will suddenly fall.” 
To which he received the answer : 
“ I show’d you Down Hall; did you look for Versailles ?” 
1 Now the property of Capt. Horace W. Calverly. 
