The Herrenhauser Allee , designed by Le Notre 
THE ROYAL GARDENS OF HERRENHAUSEN 
A WORK OF ANDRE LE NOTRE AT HANOVER, GERMANY 
By GEORGE F. KONR 1 CH 
With Photographs made especially for House and Garden 
I N the garden art of Germany there is no 
park so worthy of repute as the magnifi¬ 
cent Royal Gardens ot H'e'rrenhausen, the 
residence of the royal family of Hanover, 
one ot the kingdoms which lost their in¬ 
dividuality in the Austro-Prussian war of 
1866. The gardens lie about a mile and a 
halt westward of the city of Hanover, with 
the streets of which they are connected by a 
beautiful avenue 150 feet wide and divided 
by four rows of dense linden trees. This 
avenue is known as the Herrenhauser Allee , 
and was constructed in 1726 by Le Notre, 
the famous landscape architect of Louis XIV 
ot France. The avenue’s long lines ot foliage, 
seemingly interminable, extend unbroken to¬ 
ward the horizon and enclose three thorough¬ 
fares enjoyed as a public driveway and prom¬ 
enade. The space in the center is used for 
carriages, that on the one side by pedestrians 
and on the other by horseback riders. 
To the west of this avenue, or upon the 
left of the illustration at the head of this 
article, lies an extensive English park 
built by the royal gardener Schaumberg 
for George IV of Hanover, between the 
years 1835 and 1842. In the name of these 
grounds, the Georgen-Park, is memorized 
the name of its founder, who here erected 
his summer castle and surrounded it with 
stately trees stretching between devious paths 
of the wildwood and opening here and there 
beside placid pools, still the haunt of stately 
swans which are seen gliding to and fro and 
bending to seize the children’s crumbs. 
The boundary of the Georgen-P ark the 
farthest from the city is also the border of 
the Herrenhausen Gardens, so that these 
two parks (not to mention the Berg-garten 
and groves to the northeast of the cas¬ 
tle) form virtually a single great planted 
tract which alone would give the city of 
Hanover an enviable distinction. The paths 
and avenues of the Georgen-P ark emerge 
from the wood at the terminus of their 
larger neighbor, the Herrenhauser Allee , and 
at this point is found the entrance to the 
Gardens of Herrenhausen. 
The village of this name, first mentioned 
in history in 1022, was made the summer 
residence of Hanoverian royalty in 1665 by 
the arrival of the Duke John Frederick, who 
came hither from Celle. In the following 
year he began the laying out of the gardens 
and the building of a castle, but he died 
before completing them. In the refined 
simplicity of his broad low structure, the 
Italian architect Quirini, employed by the 
Duke, expressed the traditions of his native 
land and thus prepared the buildings of 
Herrenhausen to receive as a harmonious 
companion the French gardens which were 
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