8 FORMAL GARDENS IN 
a r? g ? erati0n in the °' d manner ° f Clipping trees - T °P iar y work in 7 ew and box was carried to an excess 
a ich the wits of the succeeding generation treated with well-deserved ridicule. A visit to the gardens at 
Levens might almost have justified Pope's famous article in the '■Guardian.” wherein he ridicules the 
absurdities and excesses of ‘verdant sculpture.' In his witty catalogue of 'greens' to be disposed of by an 
eminent town gardener, amongst other items he notes : 
“Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the tree of knowledge in the great storm ; Eve and 
the serpent very flourishing. 
“ Noah s Ark in holly, the ribs a little damaged for want of water. 
“ The tower of Babel, not yet finished. 
Ap n , , St ' Ge0rgE ^ B ° X ’ hiS arm SC3rCe l0ng en ° Ugh ’ bUt Wil1 be in a “nation to stick the dragon by next 
Following London and Wise as garden designers came Stephen Switzer, the author of “ Ichnographia 
ustica and other important works on gardening, and later on Bridgeman, who laid out Stowe in Buckr¬ 
ams ,re for Lord Cobham, about .714. Bridgeman amongst other changes almost discarded topiary work, and 
says Horace Walpole, “ introduced a little gentle disorder into the plantation of his trees and bushes.” What 
great changes were to result from this “ little gentle disorder " ! The reaction had now fairly set in. No doubt the 
formal style was on the decline; moreover, the taste for foreign ''specimen" trees and shrubs, that had existed 
for some time previously, being fostered by the nurserymen gardeners, now came to a head, and some 
difficulty having arisen in accommodating the old fashions in garden design to the new fashion in “ specimen " 
plants the solution of the problem seems to have involved the abolition of the old formal garden altogether 
The simplicity of the formal garden was now bitterly attacked by those who declared that it was opposed 
to Nature, which they proposed not to leave untouched but to “improve." “Nor is there anything more 
r. ‘culous and forbidding than a garden which is regular,” says Batty Langley, and this was the opinion 
generally held by garden designers throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
Foremost among the leaders of the new style in garden design was William Kent, who laid out the gardens 
a Esher and Claremont, also those at Carlton House for the Prince of Wales, and others at Rousham in 
Oxfordshire, and who appears to have been inspired with a desire to produce results that should resemble 
the compositions of classical landscape-painters. Walpole says, describing his work: “Selecting favourite 
objects, and veiling deformities by screens of plantations, he realized the compositions of the greatest 
masters in painting. The living landscape was chastened and polished, not transformed." Walpole 
considers the first step in the landscape style was taken when the sunken fence or ''haha”was introduced 
and he certainly touched the keynote, for as soon as walls and enclosures, which are the very essence of 
formal gardening, are destroyed, any piece of adjoining scenery may be included in the garden, and level 
lawns bounded by forest trees stretch right up to the windows of the house. 
In the early part of his career Kent followed somewhat on the lines laid down by Bridgeman of whom 
it has been said : “ He enlarged his plans, disdained to make every division tally to its opposite, and though 
he still adhered much to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were his only great lines ; the rest he 
diversified by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges." As time went 
on Kent entirely left the formal garden and substituted for it the landscape style. « Nature abhors a straight 
me, was one of his ruling principles, so he set himself to destroy the grand avenues left by former 
generations, and to make his paths to wind aimlessly about in all directions, their destination always 
concealed by an artfully placed clump of bushes. The ornamental sheets of water were either swept away 
altogether or converted into artificial lakes fed by winding streams, and with miniature waterfalls formed of 
u natural rocks. The height of absurdity was attained when he planted dead trees in Kensington Gardens 
to give the greater air of truth to the scene. ” S 
