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

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HAMPTON COURT
along the south wall in summer came, there can be
little doubt, from Holland. So the Queen diverted
herself when her cold and ungrateful husband was
taking enjoyment with Elizabeth Villiers and his
Dutchmen. She lived chiefly in the " Water Gallery,"
a small house looking upon the river, busying herself
with her needle and among her china; and " giving,"
savs Burnet, " her minutes of leisure with the greatest
willingness to architecture and gardenage."
The last work for the decoration of the gardens
which we can ascribe to William and Mary together is
the set of thirteen iron gates or screens (more strictly,
twelve screens and a gate), which form the finest
specimens of wrought ironwork that can be seen in
England. They were at first intended to screen the
private gardens from the river path; now one stands
in the Long Walk, two are placed in the Queen's
Guard Chamber, and the rest may be seen in the South
Kensington and Bethnal Green Museums. Mr.Law1
has shown that they were designed by Jean Tijon,
though they were partly executed by a Nottinghamshire
man, Huntingdon Shaw. The extraordinary
delicacy of the work, the rich elaboration of the design,
and the variety of the foliage represented, make the
work unique. The main features of the work are of
course classical,and they link the art of the Renaissance
to that of the famous decorative period which
marked the latter part of the eighteenth century in
England ; but their originality and variety are among
1 Vol. ii. pp. 54, sqq.