The English gardens in which Mr. Elgood delights to paint are for the
most part those that have come to us through the influence of the
Italian Renaissance; those that in common speech we call gardens of
formal design. The remote forefathers of these gardens of Italy, now so
well known to travellers, were the old pleasure-grounds of Rome and the
neighbouring districts, built and planted some sixteen hundred years
ago.
Though many relics of domestic architecture remain to remind us that
Britain was once a Roman colony, and though it is reasonable to suppose
that the conquerors brought their ways of gardening with them as well as
their ways of building, yet nothing remains in England of any Roman
gardening of any importance, and we may well conclude that our gardens
of formal design came to us from Italy, inspired by those of the
Renaissance, though often modified by French influence.
Very little gardening, such as we now know it, was done in England
earlier than the sixteenth century. Before that, the houses of the
better class were places of defence; castles, closely encompassed with
wall or moat; the little cultivation within their narrow bounds being
only for food--none for the pleasure of garden beauty.
But when the country settled down into a peaceful state, and men could
dwell in safety, the great houses that arose were no longer fortresses,
but beautiful homes both within and without, inclosing large garden
spaces, walled with brick or stone only for defence from wild animals,
and divided or encompassed with living hedges of yew or holly or
hornbeam, to break wild winds and to gather on their sunny sides the
life-giving rays that flowers love.
So grew into life and shape some of the great gardens that still remain;
in the best of them, the old Italian traditions modified by gradual and
insensible evolution into what has become an English style. For it is
significant to observe that in some cases, where a classical model has
been too rigidly followed, or its principles too closely adhered to,
that the result is a thing that remains exotic--that will not assimilate
with the natural conditions of our climate and landscape. What is right
and fitting in Italy is not necessarily right in England. The general
principles may be imported, and may grow into something absolutely
right, but they cannot be compelled or coerced into fitness, any more
than we can take the myrtles and lentisks of the Mediterranean region
and expect them to grow on our middle-England hill-sides. This is so
much the case, with what one may call the temperament of a region and
climate, that even within the small geographical area of our islands,
the comparative suitability of the more distinctly Italian style may be
clearly perceived, for on our southern coasts it is much more possible
than in the much colder and bleaker midlands.
Thus we find that one of the best of the rather nearly Italian gardens
is at Brockenhurst in the New Forest, not far from the warm waters of
the Solent. The garden, in its present state, was laid out by the late
Mr. John Morant, one of a long line of the same name owning this forest
property. He had absorbed the spirit of the pure Italian gardens, and
his fine taste knew how to bring it forth again, and place it with a
sure hand on English soil.
It is none the less beautiful because it is a garden almost without
flowers, so important and satisfying are its permanent forms of living
green walls, with their own proper enrichment of ball and spire, bracket
and buttress, and so fine is the design of the actual masonry and
sculpture.
The large rectangular pool, known as the Canal, bordered with a bold
kerb, has at its upper end a double stair-way; the retaining wall at the
head of the basin is cunningly wrought into buttress and niche. Every
niche has its appropriate sculpture and each buttress-pier its urn-like
finial. On the upper level is a circular fountain bordered by the same
kerb in lesser proportion, with stone vases on its circumference. The
broad walk on both levels is bounded by close walls of living
[Illustration: THE TERRACE, BROCKENHURST