DAWN OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
223 
Prior lived here for many years, and designed new gardens, 
and these alterations, which Lord Oxford carried out, included 
the present principal garden, with box hedges in the Dutch 
style, and the long wall of clipped hornbeams. Another 
charming example is at Bramham, in Yorkshire. 1 The ground- 
plan of the garden is like any figured in Switzer's books. The 
house was burnt many years ago, and never restored, but 
the gardens have been kept up in their original state, as they 
were laid out by Mr. Benson. He was Ambassador to Spain, 
and Queen Anne gave him a grant of land on Bramham Moor. 
After he had built a house and made gardens round it, she 
paid him a visit there, and created him Lord Bingley. Along 
the house is a terrace, and in front of it a grass parterre. From 
thence are seen vistas through the beech and hornbeam woods 
beyond. From the northern end of the terrace a straight walk 
between high-cut hedges runs westward, and leads at once 
into the most entrancing maze of long walks diverging from 
each other at regular angles. At the end of some there is a 
small summer-house, a seat, or statue, or monument. From 
the ends of the walks furthest from the centre the view ranges 
over the open country beyond. The garden stands above the 
level of the park, therefore the terrace-wall which divides 
them has all the effect of a sunk fence. But the most delightful 
part, perhaps, is where the avenues are wider, where the walks 
skirt the edge of the canal, and the tall trees are reflected in 
its silent waters. There is an open space laid out as a “ French 
garden." In this case it is an oval slope of grass, with large 
flower-beds in a regular pattern; a summer-house overlooks 
this garden, and to the back of the summer-house there is a 
broad bowling-green, surrounded by trees, among which are the 
walks. At the opposite end of the oval garden there is a basin 
and “ cascade," and a short distance from this point the path 
rejoins, at its southern end, the terrace which runs in front of the 
house. The effect of this garden at Bramham on a fine autumn 
day, with the slanting beams of the evening sun seen through 
the long vistas shining on the golden-brown foliage of the trees, 
is trulybeautiful, and leaves an impression never to be forgotten. 
There is a contemporary description of such a garden in a 
1 Belonging to Mr. Lane Fox. 
