LEVENS HALL 
AN OLD-WORLD GARDEN 
By EDWARD THOMAS 
I N the southern edge of the Western Marches, 
whose condition in the Middle Ages has been 
so graphically described by Crockett in his 
“Raiders” and “Men of the Moss Hagg,” stands Lev- 
ens Hall celebrated far and wide for its notable gar¬ 
dens. The river Kent flows past the Hall and through 
the park and five miles higher up the river is Kendal, 
a quaint old border town famous as the home of Ken¬ 
dal green in which Robin Hood and his men were clad. 
In Kendal castle was born Catherine Parr, the last 
wife of Henry VIII. Eight miles beyond Kendal is 
Windermere, a famous summer resort of the lake dis¬ 
trict; twenty miles to the south lies the city of Lancas¬ 
ter, whose history dates from the time of the Roman 
occupation. Forty miles beyond Lancaster is Liver¬ 
pool. Though the face of the country has been much 
changed in the course of centuries, the neighborhood 
of Levens Hall is so picturesque and romantic that it 
is still well worth a visit. The Hall itself forms an 
important link with the past for portions of the build¬ 
ing clearly date from Saxon times, though the first 
recorded mention of it is found in the Domesday 
Book of William the Conqueror. This portion of the 
building, which forms the nucleus of the later struc¬ 
ture, was at that time probably a small pele or 
stronghold against the Scottish raiders. Remodeled at 
various times its present form dates from the time of 
Elizabeth. The gardens are more recent, having been 
laid out in the year 1701 by Beaumont, the court gar¬ 
dener, who designed those at Hampton Court as well. 
The gardens at Levens are beyond question the 
finest surviving example of the topiary work which 
became so fashionable in Europe with the spread of 
learning, first introduced at Florence by the Medici 
family in the early years of the sixteenth century. 
The fashion spread rapidly through Western Europe 
