Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

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HAMPTON COURT
gardens within reach of the Londoner have half their
manifold attractions. But besides their general they
have a very special interest. In few places can we trace
so well the history of English gardening.
When Wolsev first obtained the manor, he set himself
to make gardens such as he should be able to find
repose in after the long labours of his busy days.
There in " therber " he would say his office; and he
would daily watch the planting and the weeding, of
which the records give such quaint particulars. Strong
walls surrounded this irregular garden. It was a place
of herbs and hedges, with alleys and long shaded walks
— the medieval garden of which we know so little.
When Henry VIII. took the Court for his own,
great alterations were carried out. The pleasaunce
became " Italianate," and statues of " kynges and
queenys beestes " were set up. The accounts show
continual placing of trees in the King's great orchard
and the " triangle," of roses, gillyflowers, sweetwilliams,
violets, and primroses, and setting the
divisions with low walls, on which stood capering or
rampant beasts in stone. At every convenient spot
stood a sundial.
Of the Tudor garden at Hampton Court, only the
very smallest specimens remain. There is the quaint
fountain still standing in the midst of a trim-set
design of walks and borders, in the hedge-surrounded
plot of low ground that lies between the " banqueting-house
" of William III., and the greenhouse,
which is sometimes mistakenly termed the orangery.