4 
FORMAL GARDENS IN 
of Diana is a very agreeable fountain with Actseon turned into a stag, as he was sprinkled by the goddess and 
her nymphs, with inscriptions. There is, besides, another pyramid of marble full of concealed pipes, which 
spirt upon all who come within their reach.” 
This garden was, perhaps, much in its original state at the time of the Parliamentary Survey in 1650, 
when it is thus described : “ It was cut out and divided into several allies, quarters and rounds, set about 
with thorn hedges ; on the north side was a kitchen-garden very commodious, and surrounded with a brick wall 
of fourteen feet high. On the west was a wilderness severed from the little park by a lodge, the whole 
containing ten acres. In the privy garden were pyramids, fountains, and basons of marble, one of which is set 
round with six black trees, which trees bear no fruite but only a very pleasaunte flower. . . Before the Palace 
was a neate and handsome bowling green surrounded with a balustrade of freestone.” 
Theobalds was another famous garden of this period, and the following description is from the same 
Survey: “ In the Greate Garden are nine large compleate squares or knotts lyinge upon a levell in ye middle 
of ye said Garden, whereof one is sett forth with box borders in ye likeness of ye Kinges armes, one other plott 
is planted with choice flowers; the other 7 knotts are all grass knotts handsomely turfed in the intervalls or 
little walkes ... a quicksett hedge of white Thorne and Privett cut into a handsome fashion at every angle, a 
faire cherrie tree and a Ciprus in the middle of the knotts—also a marble fountaine.” 
The growing popularity of the game of bowls, and a greater appreciation of the delights of a garden 
induced by the writings of such men as Bacon, did much to further garden designing. Although the game 
was undoubtedly played in much earlier periods, it was never encouraged, and was often subject to severe 
legislation. In 1541 it was enacted that no one could at any time “play at any bowle or bowles in open 
place out of his garden or orchard ” ; whilst a licence might be granted to anyone worth over ^100 per annum to 
play privately in his own domain. As the game became more popular among the country gentry, bowling 
lawns, with large expanses of level turf, were formed. 
The Elizabethan was a golden era in the history of domestic architecture, and in that also of garden 
designing. All through her reign her courtiers were vying with each other in the erection of splendid palaces. 
Hardwicke, Hatfield, Kirby, Longleat, and many others belong to this period, and all had most stately garden 
surroundings. Nor was the art of garden design confined to the larger houses, for even the smaller manor- 
houses had their parterres, forecourts and bowling greens. The Elizabethan garden was a combination of much 
of what was best in the older English garden, combined with the new ideas from Italy, France and Holland, 
which dominated the architecture of the period, much as they affected our literature. In designing a garden, it 
was fortunately not so easy as in the case of a building to borrow a complete scheme from one country and 
reproduce it in another, and it is this which accounts for the many essential differences between the Italian and 
the English gardens. In the Italian there is always a lack of grass-work, which forms so important a feature 
in our own, and even if we are bound to admit the foreign influence, it is not too much to claim for our 
gardens an individuality which certainly belongs to the houses they surrounded, and they obviously played 
an important part in the general harmony of the design. Thus the primitive mediaeval garden gradually 
developed into the more elaborate and stately garden of the Renaissance. 
The plan, subject to much variety in the treatment of detail, was usually drawn up somewhat on similar 
lines to that of Montacute, 1 having a walled-in forecourt in front of the house, and in the forecourt would be 
an entrance gate opposite the main entrance to the building, the wings of which gave the leading lines to the 
design. There was usually in the forecourt a small lawn, a fountain or a pond. Before arriving at this 
forecourt there was in many cases a sort of ante-court, which seems to have been designed more for the sake 
of dignity than for its utility. It was not the custom for guests to alight at the front entrance of the house, and 
1 See Plate I. The original forecourt walls here were formerly extended past the Pavilions into the Park beyond, but this was an unusual 
arrangement. 
