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

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HAMPTON COURT
already made. The gate at the north end of this
is the beautiful " Flower-pot Gate," of which the
piers are decorated with William's initials and crown,
and are surmounted by putti bearing baskets of
flowers.
In the centre of the great garden was placed the
large fountain which breaks the Broad Walk that leads
from the east front to the Long Water. Four hundred
of the limes which had been planted by Charles II.
were moved so as to form a semicircle skirting the
canal, which was now completed. The garden thus
enclosed became known as "The Great Parterre."
The elaborate parterre work, in which a complicated
design was carried out in an arrangement of box-edged
beds, filled with different coloured earths, with grass
plots, and sanded walks of different widths, and
decorated by jars full of flowers, by small fountains,
and little pieces of statuary, was completed before the
King's death, and marked the culmination of the formal
garden at Hampton Court. The great gardeners,
London and Wise, themselves literary authorities as
well as practical workmen, may fitly have regarded this
as their chef-d'oeuvre.
The changes thus completed were not permanent,
but nothing nearly so revolutionary has been attempted
since the Dutch sovereign died.
In 1700 one of the chief memorials of the Tudor
garden was destroyed — the "Mount," which had been
set as the centre of Henry VIII.'s Italian garden.
Many trees were at the same time transferred from the