HISTORICAL GARDENS
_History is philosophy teaching by examples._
--BOLINGBROKE.
Although their number has sadly diminished of late years, London still
has a few spaces remaining which may be classed as gardens. Often they
are merely green patches of a formal type, which are better suited to
the present climate than attempts at flowers; but a few regular gardens
still exist, bringing dreams of a former period. In St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital, the oldest of all such institutions, the square, with a
handsome fountain in the centre, is more what one expects to find in
Italy than in Smithfield. It is this sort of surprise that makes the
charm of London, and renders a wander through its mazes so attractive.
What a contrast the walk of a few minutes can bring in the heart of
London! but of all these changes none is more impressive than the
hush of the Charterhouse after the rush of Aldermanbury or the noise
of Clerkenwell. There is still lingering there the touch of the old
monastery; a breath of a bygone age seems to pervade the courtyards and
gateways, and something in the silence speaks of another world. The
first indication of its hidden green courts are the mulberry leaves
peeping over the worn stone wall, near the gateway which leads to the
weathered archway, the entrance of the old Carthusian monastery. This
is the very spot where, with the brutal severity of Tudor times, the
arm of the last Prior was exposed after his cruel execution at Tyburn.
The monastery, founded in 1371, was dissolved with unusual barbarity,
and passed into secular hands. The possession of it by the Duke of
Norfolk has left its mark in many of the existing buildings, as he
converted it from a cloister to a palace, but its palatial days did not
last long. It was bought by the benevolent Thomas Sutton, a portion
of whose large fortune, amassed from profitably working coal mines,
was bestowed in founding “a hospital for poor brethren and scholars.”
The scholars have been taken away from the historical associations,
to the purer air of Godalming, and the parts of the buildings devoted
to their accommodation were in 1872 bought by the Merchants Taylors’
Company for their school. The playing field of the boys is the ample
space which was enclosed by the cloister of the monastery. Part of the
land to the north has been built over, and a tall warehouse overlooks
the burying-ground of the monks, which is still a large green sward
of hallowed ground, with a row of mulberries. This lies so far below
the level of Clerkenwell Road that a flight of steps leads to the
postern gate in the high wall, overhung with climbing plants. This
“God’s acre” is covered with smooth turf, and some day the two walnut
trees planted by the master in 1901 may afford grateful shade. It is
in keeping with the spirit of the place to plant trees of such slow
and stately growth. The Preachers’ Court and the smaller Pensioners’
Court are like college quadrangles, with that perfect turf that England
alone produces. The smooth surface is broken only by the regular
intersecting gravel paths, and one row of mulberry trees some seventy
years old. The red-brick buildings have a venerable appearance,
although they do not carry the weight of centuries with dignity, like
the “Wash-house Court,” the hall, the library, or the brick cloister,
and the delightful old walls with their deliciously-scented fig-trees.
The whole place has a mediæval look and feeling, and teems with ghosts
and recollections of the monks of the early peaceful days, and their
courageous successors at the Dissolution. The pious founder, as the
chorus of the old Carthusian melody says, must not be forgotten:--
“Then blessed be the memory
Of good old Thomas Sutton,
Who gave us lodging, learning,
As well as beef and mutton.”
Of the shades which surround these peaceful green courts none appear
more real than that of Colonel Newcome. The guardian will point out the
room in which he died, or his pew in the chapel, as if he belonged to
history as much as Wray, who bequeathed the old books in the “Officers’
Library,” or any of the well-known pensioners. With such true and
pathetic touches has Thackeray drawn the character of Colonel Newcome
that fiction has here become entwined round the walls almost as closely
as fact.
Further eastward is an open piece of ground, which is hardly a garden;
but as it is green, and took the place of what was known as the
Artillery Garden, it may claim a moment’s consideration. Push open
a door in the modern-looking castellated building in the City Road
near Bunhill Fields, and a large, quiet, open space is discovered. Old
guns look inoffensively down on a wide square of green turf. This is
the home of the Honourable Artillery Company, the descendants of the
“Trained Bands” of citizens, first enrolled in 1585 in the fear of
a Spanish invasion. They have been here since 1622, when they moved
from near Bishopsgate Without. “Artillery Garden,” or Teazel Close or
Garden, was the name of the older place, from the teazel grown there
for the cloth workers.
“Teazel of ground we enlarge St. Mary’s Spittle,
Trees cut down, and gardens added to it,
Thanks to the lords that gave us leave to do it,”
says an old poem. The existing Artillery Ground was a great place for
cricket matches, where county met county in the eighteenth century. It
was here that a vast crowd witnessed the first balloon ever launched
into the air in England, sent up by Count Zambeccari in 1783. The next
year, from the same place, Lunardi was more ambitious, and actually
went up in his balloon. It proved too small for the friend who was
ready to risk his life in his company, so he took a dog, a cat, and a
pigeon with him instead.
Passing on into the City, the remains of the once extensive Drapers’
Garden is met with.[10] Only a small piece, seen from the street
through iron railings, and approached through the hall, has been
retained; a few trees and bright flowers survive of what was once a
fashionable and much sought after resort.
[Illustration: TRINITY ALMSHOUSES, MILE END ROAD]
Most of the other patches of green in the City are disused
burial-grounds, and are considered in a chapter by themselves. Beyond
the City, on the east, in the Mile End Road, is the quiet old Trinity
Hospital. It stands on the north of that wide road, which might be
made one of the most beautiful entrances to the City. The simple good
taste of these delightful old almshouses is a great contrast to some
of the surroundings. They were probably designed by John Evelyn,
with the assistance of Wren. His father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne,
founded and built very similar almshouses at Deptford, long since
swept away. Of these Evelyn writes, “It was a good and charitable
work and gift, but would have been better bestowed on the poor of
that parish than on seamen’s widows, the Trinity Company being very
rich, and the rest of the poor of the parish exceedingly indigent.”
In spite of these sentiments, he is believed to have had a hand in
the Mile End Almshouses, which were founded by Captain Henry Mudd of
Ratcliffe, Captain Sandes or Sanders, and Captain Maples. The two last
are remembered by statues still standing in the little formal gardens.
Maples, who appears in the dress of a naval officer of the period, left
a fortune for the use of the guild in diamonds, collected in India,
where he was an early pioneer, and where he died in 1680. A similar
endowment in Hull is described in a poem in 1662:--
“It is a comely built, well-ordered place,
But that which most of all the house doth grace
Are rooms for widowes, who are old and poore,
And have been wives to mariners before.”
Certainly Trinity Hospital, Mile End, is comely and well ordered. The
pensioners take a pride in keeping every nook and corner scrupulously
clean. Everything is, in fact, in “ship-shape” order. The grass is
neatly mown, the trees on either side well trimmed and clipped. Outside
each little house a few plants are carefully tended, the pots arranged
with precision, and every flower looked after with pride. It is indeed
a peaceful place for these old people to pass their declining years
in, and the sight makes the regret for St. Katharine’s and the other
vanished charitable buildings all the more keen.
The site of another benevolent institution near is fulfilling a useful
and delightful task, although the old houses attached to it have
disappeared. It was a row of almshouses founded by a member of the
Brewers’ Company, named Baker, about 150 years ago, for widows. The
garden was much too large for these decrepid old women to cultivate,
so the place was taken in hand some twenty-five years ago by the Rev.
Sidney Vatcher, who built the beautiful church of St. Philip, Stepney,
hard by, and he became the tenant of the Brewers’ Company. This
charming garden was at first more or less opened by him to the parish,
but lately it has been put to the most suitable use of giving a quiet
place for rest and recreation to the nurses of the London Hospital. The
almshouses were pulled down about four years ago, to make way for the
laundries of the Hospital. Here, indeed, is one of those sudden and
surprising contrasts to be found in London. A high brick wall encloses
this oasis, and the nurses and some privileged people have keys to the
door, which opens, from a side street close to the noise of the Mile
End Road, suddenly into a peaceful, picturesque garden. The idea in
the formation was a willow-pattern plate, and the little bridge over
a miniature stream is reproduced. Plane trees in a formal array are
kept trimmed to give a dense shade, and the hammocks hung from them in
summer provide the most ideal resting-places for the worn-out nurses.
At one time animals were kept here in cages, as a kind of small “Zoo”
for Whitechapel; but since the last alterations the animals have been
relinquished, and the bear-pit makes a delightful rock garden, and
the various other cages form summer-houses. One thoughtful addition
of the vicar was placing a small stove in one of these shelters, with
an array of kettles, teapots, cups and saucers, so that any of the
nurses resting can have their _al fresco_ cup of tea--and what could
be more grateful and comforting? A French writer who recently gave her
impressions of L’Ile Inconnue was charmed with the peace and repose
of this little East End Paradise. After seeing the Hospital and all
its wonderful appliances, “You will now see our Eden,” said the guide.
“Ici! l’Eden! m’écriai-je, après le péché alors!” Then, when she had
for a moment looked within those mysterious high walls, “N’avais-je pas
raison d’appeler ce jardin l’Eden?” said the friend. “Oui, repondis-je,
c’est l’Eden après la Rédemption.” Certainly any one who sees this
little garden, and realises the devoted lives of those who made it and
those who enjoy it, must agree with this writer.
It is not often that, when the old almshouses vanish, the neighbourhood
benefits to such an extent. What will be the fate of the Ironmongers’
Almshouses in Kingsland Road, between Shoreditch and Dalston? A large
board in the garden that fronts the street announces the site is for
sale!
The Foundling Hospital has large green courts, on which the merry but
sombrely-clad little children are seen running about, through the
fine iron gates which face Guildford Street. This was founded in 1739
by Captain Thomas Coram, who gave so much of his wealth to objects
of charity and philanthropy that a subscription had to be raised to
support him in his old age. Theodore Jacobson (died 1772) was the
architect of the building. A colonnade runs round the whole length of
the forecourt up to the gates, part of which is used as laundries, or
other things necessary to the institution. A writer in 1773 describes
the “large area between the gates and the hospital” as “adorned with
grass plats, gravel walks, and lamps erected upon handsome posts:
beside which there are two convenient gardens,” and exactly the same
description holds good to-day. Brunswick Square lies to the west, and
Mecklenburgh Square to the east, so the Hospital grounds are still
airy. There is a small garden at the back of the building in front of
the Infirmary; on the east is the Treasurer’s Garden, a fair-sized
enclosure, and on the other side, with the poplars growing in Brunswick
Square overhanging it, lies the other and larger of the two “convenient
gardens.” There is nothing old-fashioned or attractive in these gardens
left; merely a green lawn, a weeping ash, and a few commonplace
“bedding-out” plants; not altogether in keeping with the age or dignity
of the building and spacious forecourt.
Less well known is the delightful Garden of the Grey-coat School
in Westminster. Most of the old foundations in Westminster have
vanished, such as Emanuel Hospital and the “Blue-coat School,” which
disappeared a few years ago, but so far this charming old house has
been respected. Quaint figures of the children in the dress of the
time--it was founded by the citizens of Westminster in 1698--stand
on either side of the entrance. The children from the parishes of
St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, who have attended the
elementary schools for three years, are eligible for admission, up
to the age of ten. The school was reconstituted as a day school for
300 girls in 1873, and, in spite of all educational vicissitudes,
has been allowed to survive, and the sweet and wholesome influence
of those old-fashioned surroundings would be a great loss, should
it ever be swept away. The Garden is delightful. It is practical as
well as ornamental, as it furnishes the staff of teachers with a good
supply of vegetables. They have each a small flower-bed too, tended
with great care, and the children are allowed a place of their own,
where they work, dig, and plant. Down the centre runs a wide gravel
walk, with a deep herbaceous border along either side, sweet-scented
pinks and low-growing plants near the front, then a long row of
spiderwort, and behind that a regiment of magnificent hollyhocks. The
spiderwort or Tradescantia is a flower eminently suited to London
gardens, not only because it seems to withstand any amount of smoke
and bad air, but because of its association with the famous garden
in Lambeth, where it was first grown. Parkinson, in 1629, gives the
history of his friend’s introduction of the plant. “The Spiderwort,”
he writes, “is of late knowledge, and for it the Christian World is
indebted unto that painfull industrious searcher, and lover of all
nature’s varieties, John Tradescant (sometimes belonging to the Right
Honourable Lord Robert Earle of Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of England in
his time, and unto the Right Honourable the Lord Wotton at Canterbury
in Kent, and lastly unto the late Duke of Buckingham), who first
received it of a friend, that brought it out of Virginia, thinking it
to bee the Silke Grasse that groweth there, and hath imparted hereof,
as of many other things, both to me and others.” “Unto this plant I
confess I first imposed the name ... which untill some can finde a
more proper, I desire may still continue ... John Tradescant’s Spider
Wort of Virginia.” Courageous as herbalists generally were in tasting
plants, Parkinson confesses there had “not beene any tryall made of
the properties” or “vertues.” Luckily no one has disputed Parkinson’s
choice of a name, and his friend’s memory is still preserved. The
plant is not confined to Virginia, but grows much further into the
Wild West, and is common in Kansas, Nebraska, and distant States.
Yet it will still adapt itself to the grimy limits of a London garden,
and flower year after year. The Grey-coat School Garden is quite
refreshing; the plants look so healthy and prosperous that it is really
encouraging. The interior of the house, with oak beams and panels, is
all in keeping, and the long class-room, with windows looking out on
the bright Garden, is most ideal. As, at the close of their afternoon
studies, the girls, singing sweetly in parts, join in some familiar
hymn, and the melodious sounds are wafted across the sunlit Garden, it
is hard to believe in the existence of the crowded, unsavoury slums of
Westminster, only a stone’s throw from this “haunt of ancient peace.”
[Illustration: GREY COAT SCHOOL, WESTMINSTER]
Among its many charms and associations Westminster Abbey can lay
claim to possessing one of the oldest gardens in England. The ground
still occupied by the space known as the “College Garden” was part
of the infirmary garden of the ancient monastery. It cannot trace
back its history with the Abbey to the Saxon Sebert, but when Edward
the Confessor’s pile began to rise, and all the usual adjuncts of
a monastery gathered round it, the infirmary with the necessary
herb-garden of simples for treating the sick monks would be one of the
first buildings to be completed. One of the most peaceful and retired
spots within the Abbey precincts is the Little Cloister, which was
the infirmary in early days. When the Great Cloister was finished in
1365, the Little Cloister was taken in hand. Payments for work on
“the New Cloister of the Infirmary” appear in the accounts from 1377,
and it was completed in 1390, and that year the centre was laid down
in turf. The garden belonging to the infirmary covered all the space
now occupied by the “College Garden,” and joined the “Grete Garden,”
which lay to the west. It was probably, like all the gardens of that
date, laid out in long, narrow, straight beds, in which were grown all
the healing herbs used for the sick of the monastery. Probably there
were fruit-trees, too, as in 1362 John de Mordon, the infirmarer, got
9s. for his apples, and the following year 10s. for pears and apples.
No doubt the favourite Wardon pear was among them, as in another
record, between 1380–90, it is specially mentioned. The chapel of St.
Katharine, which stood on the north side of the Garden, was destroyed
in Elizabeth’s reign. This, the infirmary chapel of Norman building,
was as replete with history as every other nook and corner of the Abbey
buildings. Here St. Hugh of Lincoln and most of the early bishops were
consecrated, and here took place the unseemly dispute for precedence,
between the Primates of Canterbury and York in 1186, which led to the
settling of their respective ranks by the Pope. While so many changes
have swept over the Abbey, and whole buildings have vanished, the
herb-garden of early days has kept its place, and is still a garden,
though bereft of its neat little beds.
[Illustration: ABBEY GARDEN, WESTMINSTER]
The Little Cloister has been greatly altered since then, having been
refashioned in the early part of the eighteenth century under the
influence of Wren. Although so changed since the time when strange
decoctions of medicinal herbs were administered within its walls, it
has retained much of its fascination, and the approach to it by the dim
vaulted entrance, dating from the Confessor’s time, out of the narrow
passage known as the “Dark Entry,” adds to its charm. The sun streams
down on this small court, with its tree and ferns and old moss-grown
fountain, lighting it with a kind of “dusky splendour.” Any one
standing in this suggestive spot will feel with Washington Irving,
that “The Cloisters still retain something of the quiet and seclusion
of former days. The gray walls are discoloured by damps, and crumbling
with age; a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of
the mural monuments, and obscured the death’s heads, and other mural
emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery
of the arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their
leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of
time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its very decay.”
These lines refer to the Great Cloister, but the quiet and repose are
still more noticeable in the Little Cloister, which rarely echoes to
the sound of hurrying feet. The noise and laughter of Westminster
scholars is only dimly heard in this secluded corner. The boys are not
as boisterous as when Horace Walpole feared to face them alone, even to
visit his mother’s tomb. “I literally had not courage to venture alone
among the Westminster boys; they are as formidable to me as the ship
carpenters at Portsmouth,” he wrote in 1754. Even in those days the
list of eminent scholars was already a long one--Hakluyt, Ben Jonson,
George Herbert, Dryden, Wren, being on the roll of those who had passed
away, besides others then living, such as Gibbon and Warren Hastings,
who carried on the tradition of this classic ground.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE CLOISTER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY]
In monastic times there were many gardens within the precincts of the
Abbey, besides the infirmary garden; but it is difficult to locate
all of them with certainty, although the sites of some are known. The
abbot’s garden lay in the north-west angle of the wall, and must have
covered part of the present Broad Sanctuary, including the spot
where the Crimean monument now stands. Beyond the abbot’s house, just
west of the cloister, was the abbot’s little garden. The northern part
of Dean’s Yard was from very early times known as “The Elms,” from
the grove of fine trees, some of which remain. It is said that when
Elizabeth ascended the throne and summoned Abbot Feckenham, who had
been reinstated by Mary, he was planting some, perhaps these identical,
elm trees. Among them formerly stood a huge oak, which was blown down
in 1791. The horse pool was on the west of the Elms, and beyond both to
the south lay the numerous adjuncts of the monastery, the brewhouse,
bakehouse, and granaries. Skirting this enclosure was the “Long Ditch,”
which flowed by the line of the present Delahay Street and Prince’s
Streets, and passed along outside of the wall of the Infirmary Garden,
in what is now Great College Street, and fell into the Thames. This
stream turned the mill from which “Millbank” took its name. In it, to
the south of the granary, was a small island osier bed. The sale of the
osiers on it used to bring in 10s. annually in the fourteenth century.
Beyond the stream were more gardens. The “Hostry Garden” was a large
one on the site of the church of St. John, and next to it the “Bowling
Alley,” where Bowling Street ran in later times, and to the west of
that was a kitchen-garden. Somewhere also on the west of the “Long
Ditch,” before it turned towards the Thames near the osier island, must
have been the “Precentor’s Mede,” or, as it was sometimes called, the
“Chaunter’s-hull,” and also the “Almoner’s Mede” or “Almery Garden.”
On the other side of the “Hostry Garden,” southwards on the site of
“Vine Street” and “Market Street,” was situated the vineyard, without
which no thirteenth-century monastery was complete, and “Market Mede.”
Even this does not exhaust the list of separate gardens, but the
others probably lay further away. The cellarer had charge of a large
garden, which may have been the “Convent Garden,” which is so familiar
as “Covent Garden” that the connection between the site of the market
and the Abbey has been lost sight of. One of the large gardens which
was generally let was “Maudit’s Garden.” In the records it is spoken
of as “Maudit’s” or “Caleys.” The name Maudit was given to it because
Thomas Maudit, Earl of Warwick, in the thirteenth century effected an
exchange of lands with the Abbey, of which the garden formed a part.
The other name, “Caleys,” was “Calais,” named from the wool staplers
who came from that town and resided near there, just as “Petty France”
(where Milton lived) was called so from the French merchants. An Act
of interchange of land between Henry VIII. and the Abbey, in the
twenty-third year of his reign, mentions “a certain great messuage
or tenement commonly called Pety Caleys, and all messuages, houses,
barns, stables, dove-houses, orchards, gardens, pools, fisheries,
waters, ditches, lands, meadows, and pastures.” Part of this was
“Maudit’s” garden, which was sometimes in the hands of the convent, but
more frequently let out. Among the muniments in 1350, “a toft called
Maudit’s garden, and a croft called Maudit’s croft,” are referred to.
There seems to have been an enclosure within this “toft” which was let
out separately, and in the twentieth year of Edward IV., Matilda, the
widow of Richard Willy, who had held it, gave up this enclosure or
“conyn garth.” This was probably a “coney garth” or rabbit enclosure,
like the one at Lincoln’s Inn, which was kept up for a long time. Such
rabbit gardens were by no means uncommon. All gardening operations
must at times have been rendered difficult by reason of the wet soil
and frequent flooding of the river, but with the patient persistence
characteristic of gardeners in those days, the gardens in monastic
times were probably well kept, and yielded profitable crops. It is
delightful to know that, in spite of all the changes, one portion of
the old gardens actually remains to this day.
Lambeth, on the opposite bank, fared no better than Westminster for
high tides, and wet seasons did occasional damage there. In Archbishop
Laud’s Diary, he notes the inroad of a high tide, which certainly would
be destructive:--“November 15, 1635, Sunday. At afternoon the greatest
tide that hath been seen. It came within my gates, walks, cloysters,
and stables at Lambeth.” Nothing of great antiquity now remains in
these Lambeth Gardens, although they are indeed historic ground. The
long terrace and wide herbaceous border, with a profusion of madonna
lilies, backed by a wooden paling, and fruit-trees peeping over, is
now a charming walk. The trees on the right of the illustration are
planes, ailanthus, and catalpas, all smoke-resisting and suitable,
but not such as would have ornamented the Garden in older days, when
Archbishop Cranmer adorned his garden with “a summer-house of exquisite
workmanship.” It was designed by his chaplain, Dr. John Ponet or
Poynet, who is said to have had “great skill and taste in works of
that kind.” The summer-house was repaired by Archbishop Parker, but
afterwards fell into decay and was removed, and in 1828 not even a
tradition of where it had stood remained. The site of “Clarendon’s
Walk,” another historical corner of the Lambeth Garden, is also
uncertain. It appears to have received the name from a conversation
which took place in the Garden between Laud and Hyde, in which the
latter seems to have told the Archbishop pretty plainly that “people
were universally discontented ... and many people spoke extreme ill of
his grace,” on account of his discourteous manners, which culminated on
one occasion by his telling a guest “he had no time for compliments,”
which greatly incensed him. The only survivals of former years are
the delightfully fragrant fig-trees, which flourish between the
buttresses on the sunny side of the library--the great hall rebuilt by
Archbishop Juxon after the destruction in Cromwell’s time. These figs
are now fair-sized trees, but they are only cuttings of the older ones
destroyed in 1829, when Archbishop Howley commenced his rebuilding.
The two parent trees, in 1792, measured 28 inches and 21 inches in
circumference, and were 50 feet high and 40 feet in breadth, and,
according to contemporary evidence, bore delicious fruit of the white
Marseilles variety. Tradition ascribed their planting to Cardinal Pole
during his brief sojourn as Archbishop.
[Illustration: HERBACEOUS BORDER, LAMBETH PALACE]
Latimer seems much to have appreciated the Lambeth Garden, when
business called him to the Palace. Sir Thomas More describes, in
1534, how he watched him walking in the Garden from the windows.
Latimer himself, in writing to Edward VI., says, “I trouble my Lord of
Canterbury, and being at his house now and then, I walk in the Garden
looking at my book, as I can do but little good at it. But something I
must needs do to satisfy the place. I am no sooner in the Garden and
have read awhile, but by-and-by cometh there some one or other
knocking at the gate. Anon cometh my man and saith, ‘Sir, there is
one at the gate would speak with you.’” How many of us that have been
called in from a pleasant garden to perform some unpleasant task will
sympathise with the Bishop!
One famous inhabitant of the Garden lived through many and great
changes. This was a tortoise, which is said to have been put into the
Garden by Archbishop Laud, and lived until 1757, when he perished by
the negligence of a gardener. This legend is apparently quite true, so
it had been there for over 110 years.
A short account of the principal gardens near London, written by Gibson
in 1691, describes that of Lambeth Palace. It “has,” he says, “little
in it but walks, the late Archbishop [Sancroft] not delighting in”
gardens, “but they are now making them better; and they have already
made a green-house, one of the finest and costliest about the town. It
is of three rooms, the middle having a stove under it; ... but it is
placed so near Lambeth Church, that the sun shines most on it in winter
after eleven o’clock, a fault owned by the gardener, but not thought
of by the contrivers. Most of the greens are oranges and lemons, which
have very large ripe fruit on them.” The Archbishop who thus took the
garden in hand was Tillotson, and it is not surprising to find him
adopting that keenness for gardening and the cultivation of “greens”
brought into fashion by William III.
Nearly ten acres of the extensive grounds of Lambeth Palace have now
been put under the management of the London County Council, and made
open to the public as “Archbishop’s Park.” For many years this Park had
been used for cricket and so on, but the transference entailed some
alterations, and extended its use to a wider circle.
The Garden of Fulham, the other ecclesiastical palace of London, is
even more interesting than Lambeth, on account of the fine trees
still remaining of which the history is known. Among the Bishops of
London several have shown great interest in the gardens, and two
especially, Grindal and Compton, were eminent gardeners. The tamarisk
was introduced by Bishop Grindal, and in the golden age of gardening
he was in the foremost rank of the patrons of the art, with Bacon and
Burghley. He used to send Queen Elizabeth presents of choice fruits
from his garden, and on one occasion got into trouble by sending
fruit, when one of his servants was supposed, unjustly, to have the
plague. He wrote (5th August 1566) to Burghley, to say he was sorry
he had “no fruit to offer him but some grapes.” These grapes were of
course produced out of doors, as growing vines in green-houses was a
fashion unknown until some 150 years later. Even before the additions
of Grindal, the gardens were extensive, and Bonner is said to have been
much in his garden, not from the love of its repose, but, according to
contemporary but prejudiced chroniclers, because in the further arbours
of the garden he could with the rod or by other equally stringent
measures, “persuade” undisturbed those of the reformed religion to
recant and adopt his views. His successor, Grindal, used the Garden
for more laudable and peaceful practices, and his work of planting was
much appreciated in that garden-loving age. Bishop Aylmer, who, after
Sandys, succeeded Grindal in 1577, was accused of destroying much of
Grindal’s work and cutting down his trees, then some thirty-five
years old. Strype, however, protests that he only cut down “two or
three of the decayed ones.” That there should be a controversy on
the subject only shows how much was thought of Grindal’s planting.
The same thing happened after the death of Compton, the next great
planter, as Robinson, who followed him, let the gardener sell and cut
down as much as he liked. In our own day, even, some of Compton’s elms
have been removed, to make the alterations in the Bishop’s Park when
it was opened to the public. The Bishop’s Park is the long, narrow
strip of land between the moat and the river. Flowering shrubs on the
bank of the moat, and rows of cut plane trees by the river, have been
planted. There are two long asphalt paths, and some bedding out and
rock gardening between the grass lawns. It is now kept in order by the
Borough of Fulham, which reminds the public of the fact by the notices
stuck up: “Ratepayers, protect your property.”
The Elm Avenue was part of Compton’s design, and many very fine trees
known to be his remain to this day. During the long duration of his
episcopate--1675 to 1714--he had time to see his plants grow and
flourish. His gardening achievements were much appreciated in his own
day. John Evelyn, a great authority on horticultural matters, was
often at Fulham. He notes in his Diary on Oct. 11, 1681: “To Fulham
to visit the Bishop of London, in whose garden I first saw the _Sedum
arborescens_ in flower, which was exceedingly beautiful.” Richard
Bradley, a well-known gardener, in his book published in 1717, quotes
many of the plants at Fulham as examples in his pages. With regard
to the passion flower, his notice is interesting, as it gives the
name of Bishop Compton’s gardener. “That [the passion flower] may
bear fruit,” he writes, “we must Plant it in very moist and cool
places, where it may be continually fed with Water; this I had from
the Curious Mr. Adam Holt, Gardener to the late Bishop of London,
who shew’d me a letter from the West Indies, from whence I learnt it
was an Inhabitant of Swampy Places.” Bradley had seen the pistachio
fruiting against a wall at Fulham, and he thought he had also noticed
an olive flourishing there. From time to time there have been special
notices of the trees round the Bishop’s palace. Sir William Watson
wrote a paper on them for the Royal Society, in which he gives a list
of thirty-seven special trees, many of them the finest of their kind in
England. “For exemplification of this I would,” he says, “recommend to
the curious observer the black Virginian walnut tree, the cluster pine,
the honey locust, the pseudo-acacia, the ash maple, &c., now remaining
at Fulham.” Many of the later bishops have paid great attention to
the grounds. Bishop Porteous (1787–1809) who planted cedars; Howley
(1813–1828), and especially Blomfield (1828–1856), all took delight
in the Garden. Bishop Blomfield planted a deciduous cypress and the
ailanthus, which now measures 10 feet 4 inches at 4 feet from the
ground, curiously exactly the same girth as the one at Broom House
close by. In 1865, Bishop Tait had the old trees measured, and there
are later measurements of some of the finest. The cork tree was 13
feet 9 inches, and although sadly shattered, part of this magnificent
old tree, with its thick cork bark, still holds its own. The great
black walnut or hickory has not been so fortunate, and died about ten
years ago, and only a venerable stump is left; but a good specimen
still stands in the meadow. The great tree in 1865 measured 15 feet 5
inches; in 1894, 17 feet 3 inches. The tulip tree died about the same
time as the hickory. The honey locust (_Gleditschia triacanthos_), one
of Bishop Compton’s trees, only died last year, the large white elm in
1904, and, sad to say, the flowering ash (_Fraxinus ornus_) was blown
down in March 1907. The Wych elm and a beautiful walnut still flourish,
and also the variety of Turkey oak (_Quercus cerris lucumbeana_ or
_fulhamensis_), so in spite of many disasters Fulham Palace still can
show some fine trees.
Chelsea still abounds in gardens. There are the modern plots along the
Embankment, laid out with the wriggling path that municipal authorities
seem to deem necessary nowadays. The private gardens in front of
some of the houses are an older institution, and some can boast of
delightful patches of old gardens in their rear also. Behind Lindsay
House the Moravian burial-ground is hidden away, and part of its wall
may be the actual wall of Sir Thomas More’s garden. There are the
remains of elms and several good mulberry trees. The large mulberry on
the Embankment near looks as if it once might have been in the garden
too. Chelsea further possesses one of the first botanical gardens in
England, the Duke of York’s School with large grass area and fine elm
trees, and the spacious grounds that surround the Hospital. Much of
the old stately simplicity still clings to these latter, although last
century saw many variations in their plan.
The site was occupied by King James’s College, founded by Matthew
Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, in 1610, which, in spite of the King’s
patronage and the interest of Prince Henry, was a failure. It added
to, rather than allayed, religious discussion, and was familiarly
known as “Controversy College.” The ground was, in 1669, given to
the Royal Society, but the buildings were too dilapidated for them
to use. To Sir Stephen Fox is probably due the idea of founding a
hospital for disabled soldiers, although tradition also attributes
some of the credit to Nell Gwynn, who is said to have appealed to
Charles II. on their behalf. The King laid the foundation-stone, on
the 12th of March 1682, of the building designed by Wren. John Evelyn,
as one of the Council of the Royal Society, had been consulted when
the idea was first mooted, and in January 1682 he notes in his Diary
a talk on the subject with Sir Stephen Fox, who asked for Evelyn’s
assistance with regard to the staff and management. So in Sir Stephen’s
study, as Evelyn writes, “We arranged the governor, chaplain, steward,
housekeeper, chirurgeon, cook, butler, gardener, porter, and other
officers, with their several salaries and entertainments.” This list
of officials shows the importance of the Garden from the first--and no
wonder, as the grounds occupied some twenty-six acres. A survey made in
1702 shows how this space was divided. The largest part, lying to the
north of the Hospital, is what is now known as “Burton’s Court,” and
is used as a recreation ground for the soldiers in the barracks near,
and a cricket ground for the brigade of Guards. The avenue down the
central walk, “planted with limes and chestnuts,” was included in the
early design, and “Royal Avenue” is a continuation of it, Queen Anne
having, it is said, intended to carry it on to Kensington. This part,
called “the great court north of the buildings,” occupied over thirteen
acres. The rest was divided into grass plots between the quadrangle
courts and canals, nearly three acres; the “garden on the east, now the
governor’s,” about two acres; a kitchen-garden towards the river
of more than three acres, two L-shaped canals with wide walks between,
an “apothecary’s garden” for medicinal herbs, bleaching yards, and the
churchyard. The front garden, with its canals in Dutch style, ended
in a terrace along the river. This garden was subject to much abuse
by the landscape school of designers. “It was laid out,” wrote one in
1805, “when the art of landscape gardening was at its lowest pitch; the
principal absurdity in the garden is cutting two insignificant canals
as ornaments, whilst one side of the garden is bounded by the noble
stream of the Thames.” The writer adds that the gardens were open on
Sundays in summer, and were much frequented as a public promenade.
These severely-criticised canals were filled up in the middle of last
century, and the space is now grass with avenues on either side, and a
central obelisk, a monument to our soldiers who fell in the battle of
Chillianwallah.
[Illustration: STATUE OF CHARLES II., CHELSEA HOSPITAL]
The statue of Charles II. as a Roman emperor, by Gibbons, in the centre
of the court, was given by Tobias Rustat. The view over the simple,
spacious garden from this central court, to the long balustrade with
steps down to the lower terrace, is very satisfying, and in keeping
with the stately architecture. The Governor’s house has its own
special garden, a fine, wide terrace and large, straight beds, and a
delightful red-brick wall covered with trailing plants and fine iron
gateway. The old pensioners, in their long coats and weather-beaten
faces, enjoying their “peace pipe” and their well-earned repose, add
very greatly to the picturesque effect of the Garden, and all its
surroundings. The churchyard, clearly seen through the railings along
Queen’s Road from Chelsea Barracks, has an air of dignified repose. It
has been closed since 1854. The first soldier buried there in 1692,
Simon Box, had served four kings: Charles I., Charles II., James II.,
and William III. The tombs are much worn with age, and it is no longer
possible to find some of those known to have been laid to rest there.
Among them are two women who had served as privates; one of them,
who died in 1739, Christian Davies or “Mother Ross,” had served in
Marlborough’s campaigns. The extraordinary number of centenarians this
small burying-ground contains is astounding. William Hisland surely
beats the record, as he was married when he was over a hundred! He was
born in August 1620, and died in February 1732. Another veteran of 112
died five years later, while another, Robert Comming, who was buried
in 1767, was 115, and before the end of the eighteenth century three
others, aged respectively 102, 111, and 107, were interred. The eldest
of these three, who died in 1772, had fought in the Battle of the
Boyne! It certainly speaks well for the care and attention bestowed on
them in the Hospital.
[Illustration: GARDEN GATE, CHELSEA HOSPITAL]
The garden to the east of the buildings was part of the original
ground, but has had a career and history of its own. It was the famous
Ranelagh Gardens, which enchanted the beaux and fair ladies of the
eighteenth century. From 1742 to 1803 its glories lasted. Ranelagh
House was built by the Earl of that name, who was Paymaster to the
Forces in the reign of James II., a clever, unscrupulous person, who
amassed considerable wealth in the course of his office-work. He
obtained a grant of the land from Chelsea Hospital, built a house
and laid out a garden, where the “plots, borders, and walks” were
“curiously kept, and elegantly designed.” After passing through the
hands of his daughter, Lady Catherine Jones, the property was sold to
Swift and Timbrell, who leased it to Lacey, the patentee of Drury Lane
Theatre. The idea was to turn it into a winter Vauxhall. Eventually
it was open from Easter till the end of the summer, and effectually
outshone Vauxhall. Walpole, in a letter two days after it was first
opened, did not think much of it. “I was there, last night, but did
not find the joy of it. Vauxhall is a little better, for the garden
is pleasanter, and one goes to it by water.” Two years later he wrote
in a very different strain. “Every night constantly I go to Ranelagh,
which has totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes anywhere else--everybody
goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it, that he says he
has ordered all his letters to be directed thither.” Fanny Burney,
in “Evelina,” to bring out the character of the “surly, vulgar, and
disagreeable man,” makes him abuse the place which fascinated polite
society. “There’s your famous Ranelagh, that you make such a fuss
about; why, what a dull place is that!” The chief amusement was walking
about and looking at each other, as the poem by Bloomfield puts it--
“We had seen every soul that was in it,
Then we went round and saw them again.”
The great attraction was the Rotunda, supposed to be like the Pantheon
at Rome. The outside diameter was 185 feet. An arcade ran all round,
and above it a gallery, with steps up to it through four Doric
porticos. Over the gallery were sixty windows, and the whole was
surmounted by a slate roof. In the middle, supporting the roof, was
a huge fireplace, on the space at first occupied by the orchestra.
“Round the Rotunda,” inside, were “47 boxes ... with a table and
cloth spread in each; in these the company” were “regaled, without
any further expense, with tea and coffee.” The whole was adorned with
looking-glasses and paintings, imitation marble, stucco, and gilding.
Dr. Arne wrote music for the special performances; breakfasts were
at one time the rage, and at another masquerades were the order of
the day; while fireworks and illuminations amused the company at
intervals, all through the years in which Ranelagh was prosperous.
“There thousands of gay lamps aspir’d
To the tops of the trees and beyond;
And, what was most hugely admired,
They looked upside-down in a pond.
The blaze scarce an eagle could bear
And an owl had most surely been slain;
We returned to the circle, and then--
And then we went round it again.”
One of the last entertainments at Ranelagh was the Installation Ball
of the Knights of the Bath in 1803; and a few years afterwards all
trace of Ranelagh House, the Rotunda, and even the Garden was gone. The
ground reverted to Chelsea Hospital, and not a vestige of the former
glories is left. The pleasant shady walks and undulating lawns on the
site, bear no resemblance to the lines of the former gardens, and only
some of the older trees can have been there when Lord Chesterfield and
Walpole were paying it daily visits.
The most important of Chelsea gardens, and one of the most interesting
in England, is the Physic Garden, which lies between the Embankment
and Queen’s Road, now called Royal Hospital Road. The Garden, both
horticulturally, botanically, and historically, has claims on every
Londoner. England was much behind the rest of Europe in starting
botanic gardens. That of Padua, begun in 1545, was the first on the
Continent, and it was nearly a hundred years later before any were
attempted in this country. Oxford led the way in 1632, and the Chelsea
one followed in 1673. Its formation was due to the Apothecaries’
Company, and its first object the study of medicinal herbs. In those
days botany and medicine were closely entwined. Every botanical and
horticultural work was occupied with the virtues and properties of
plants, far more than their structural peculiarities, or their beauties
of form or growth. Gerard, Johnson, and less well-known botanists, were
herbalists and apothecaries, so it was only natural that the Worshipful
Company of Apothecaries should be the founders of a garden. It was not
the first of its kind in London, but it ranks now as the second oldest
in England, as its predecessors in London, such as Gerard’s Garden in
Holborn, and the Tradescants in Lambeth, have long since passed away.
It probably, moreover, embodies the earlier one at Westminster, which
was under the care of Hugh Morgan, said by his contemporaries to be a
very skilful botanist. The Westminster Garden seems to have been still
flourishing when the Apothecaries started theirs in Chelsea, but three
years later it was bought by them, one of the conditions of sale being
that the plants might be moved to Chelsea. The land in Chelsea was
leased from Lord Cheyne. By the time the lease had expired, Sir Hans
Sloane was owner of the property, having purchased it from Lord Cheyne
in 1712. He granted the land to the Apothecaries’ Company on a yearly
rent of £5, on condition that it should always be maintained as a
Physic Garden, and certain other conditions, such as supplying a number
of specimens to the Royal Society. The deed of gift further provided
that should the Apothecaries not continue to fulfil their obligation,
the Garden should be held in trust by the Royal Society, and should
they not wish to take it over, by the College of Physicians. It was
acting in conformity with these wishes, that, when the Apothecaries
ceased to desire to maintain it, the Charity Commissioners, in 1898,
established a scheme for the management of the Garden: £800 towards
its maintenance was provided by the London Parochial Charities, who
became trustees of the Garden, and £150 by the Treasury. A committee
was appointed to manage the Garden, and see that it fulfilled the
founder’s intentions. The original societies mentioned by Sir Hans
Sloane, the Treasury, the London County Council, and other modern
bodies each nominate one representative on the board of management, and
the trustees appoint nine. It has been worked under this scheme since
May 1899. The buildings and green-houses, which were tumbling down,
have been rebuilt, and now include up-to-date conveniences for growing
and rearing plants, and a well-fitted laboratory and lecture room.
The Garden is certainly now fulfilling the purposes for which it was
founded. It has proved to be of the greatest use to the students of the
Royal College of Science, and members of schools and polytechnics. Cut
specimens, for demonstration at lectures, are sent out in quantities
during the summer, often as many as 750 in a day. Students and teachers
have admission to the Garden, and the numbers who come (nearly 3000
is the average annual attendance) show it is appreciated. Lectures on
advanced botany have been attended by an average of seventy students,
and research experiments are carried on in the laboratory. Seeds are
exchanged with botanical gardens all over the world, to the extent of
over a thousand packets in a year. In this it is carrying on a very
early tradition, as seeds were exchanged with the University of Leyden
in 1682, after Dr. Herman, from that city, had visited Chelsea.
Even in its early days the Apothecaries found the Garden expensive to
keep up. When in 1685 it cost them £130, besides the Curator’s salary,
they made an arrangement, by which they paid him £100 a year, out of
which he had to keep up the Garden, and was allowed to sell the plants.
Watt was the first Curator under this new plan, and Doody, a botanist
of some standing who succeeded him, was under the same conditions.
Philip Miller was appointed Curator, after the land had been given by
Sir Hans Sloane, and other well-known men have been connected with it.
After 1724, besides the Curator, a “Præfectus Horti,” or Director, was
appointed to visit and inspect the Garden, and report on its condition
to the Company. Sometimes there was a little rivalry between the two,
and at one time this occasioned two lists of the plants contained in
the Garden being published, one by Isaac Rand, the other by Philip
Miller. Among the famous names in botany or horticulture connected with
the Garden are Dr. Dale, Mrs. Elizabeth Blackwell, James Sherard and
his brother William, Joseph Millar, William Curtis, Forsyth, Robert
Fortune and Dr. Lindley, and Nathaniel Ward, the inventor of “Wardian
Cases.” But of all the Curators, Philip Miller was one of the most
eminent, and did most for the Garden. His Dictionary was for years the
standard work on horticulture, and went through numerous editions and
translations. He published a catalogue of plants in the Physic Garden
in 1730. The last “Præfectus Horti” was Lindley, who held the office
from 1835 to 1853. During that time the expenses were getting too heavy
for the Society, and after his death no successor was appointed. Thomas
Moore, who was co-editor with Lindley of the well-known “Treasury of
Botany,” and author of several works on British ferns, continued alone
as Curator. He held the office from 1848 to 1887. During his later
years the Garden gradually declined for want of funds, and after his
death no new appointment was made by the Apothecaries, and a labourer
looked after the grounds. With the advent of the new authority and
great expansion of work, the office was once more bestowed on a
competent man, William Hales, the present Curator, who ably maintains
the old traditions of the garden.
One of the institutions of early days which has had to be discontinued
was the “herborising.” Expeditions in search of herbs were undertaken
by the students, in company of their teacher, in the neighbourhood.
After 1834, owing to the spread of London, these excursions had to be
abandoned.
The famous cedars were planted in Watt’s time, and from contemporary
references to them, there seems no doubt that they were the first to
be grown in England. John Evelyn in his “Sylva” in 1663, writing of
the cedar, says, “Why should it not thrive in Old England?” and Ray
is astonished in 1684 to see the young trees flourishing at Chelsea
without protection. They are shown in a plan of the Garden in 1753
(the year of Sir Hans Sloane’s death) at the four corners of a pond,
which no longer remains in the same position. Eighteen years later the
two furthest from the river were cut down (1771), “being in a decayed
state” (and no wonder) from the rough usage they had been subjected
to. The timber, 133¾ feet, was sold at 2s. 8d. a foot, and, together
with the branches, the trees fetched £23, 9s. 8d. The two specimens
nearest the river were for nearly a hundred years a conspicuous object,
although much injured by snow in 1809. By 1871, only one remained, and,
in a report of the Garden seven years later, it was said to be in a
“dying condition.” At the time the new Management Committee came into
office, that one was quite dead. They left the tree standing until the
fungi on it became a danger to the rest of the trees in the Garden,
when most reluctantly it was felled in March 1904, all the sound parts
of the timber being carefully preserved. Miller gives a good account
of them in his time. “The four trees,” he writes, “(which as I have
been credibly informed) were planted there in the year 1683, and at
that time were not above three feet high; two of which Trees are at
this time (viz. 1757) upwards of eleven feet and a Half in girt, at
two Feet above ground, and thereby afford a goodly shade in the hotest
Season of the Year.” He goes on to point out that they were planted so
near the pond, which was bricked up to within two feet of them, that
the roots could not spread on one side. Whether the water was good for
them he is not sure, but feels certain it was injurious to cramp the
roots. The two specimens nearest the green-house had had some of their
branches lopped off, to prevent their shading the grass, and suffered
in consequence. Though one remained for nearly 150 years after Miller
gave these measurements, it was only 13 feet round the trunk at the
base when it was felled, and was so completely rotten it must soon have
fallen. Miller records that three of the trees began producing cones
about 1732, and that in his time the seeds ripened, and germinated
freely, so it is probable that many plants in England are descendants
of the Chelsea trees. That these were actually the first to be grown
in England there is not much doubt. Evelyn regrets in his “Sylva” the
absence of the cedars in England. The only trees which have put forth
rival claims to the Chelsea ones are those of Bretby and Enfield. The
Bretby one is undoubtedly very old, but there is no early reference to
it in histories which mention the Enfield trees, and the famous one
at Hendon, traditionally planted by Queen Elizabeth and blown down in
1779, and a few others; and there is no contemporary evidence of the
date of its planting to warrant the assumption that it was before 1683.
The Enfield tree in the garden of Robert Uvedale was said, in 1823, by
Henry Phillips, to be about 156 years old, therefore older than the
Chelsea ones by some six years; but there is no evidence to corroborate
this. When Gibson describes the Garden in 1691, he makes no mention
of it, and it seems unlikely he would have omitted such an important
tree. There exists much correspondence with Uvedale and botanists of
his time, but in none of the letters or early notices is the cedar
mentioned before Ray’s note of the Chelsea trees, or even referred to
as the first planted in England, so it seems the Chelsea trees’ claim
to be the first is fairly established.
The oriental plane, which fell just as it was going to be taken down
in 1904, was one of the finest in London, planted by Philip Miller,
and is quoted by Loudon, in 1837, as then 115 feet high. Some of the
other famous trees have also died, such as the cork trees and paper
mulberries; but some have been more fortunate, and are among the
oldest of their kind in England. The _Koelreuteria paniculata_ is
probably the finest in this country, and the other old trees which
were noted as being particularly fine specimens in 1813 or 1820, and
which are still alive, are _Diospyros Virginiana_, the Persimmon or
Virginian date plum, the Quercus ilex, black walnut, mulberry, and
_Styrax officinale_. _Rhus juglandifolia_, which grows by the wall,
was probably planted when introduced from Nepaul in 1823. The wistaria
and pomegranate are old and still flourishing, and young plants of the
trees once famous in the Garden are doing well. The amount of attention
the novelties in the Physic Garden used to attract is well shown by
the spurious translation of De Sorbière’s travels. The little book,
published in 1698, purported to be a translation of De Sorbière, but
was really an original skit. The writer pretends De Sorbière visited
the Garden, and reported a delightful series of imaginary flowers. “I
was at Chelsey, where I took particular notice of the plants in the
Green House at that time, as _Urtica male oleus Japoniæ_, the stinking
nettle of Japan; _Goosberia sterelis Armenia_, the Armenian gooseberry
bush that bears no fruit (this had been potted thirty years);
_Brambelia fructificans Laplandiæ_, or the Blooming Bramble of Lapland;
with a hundred other curious plants, and a particular Collection of
Briars and Thorns, which were some part of the curse of the Creation.”
That it was worth while laughing at the Garden in a popular skit,
shows what an important position it had taken. The green-houses were
among the earliest attempted, and many scientific visitors describe
their plans and arrangements. They were rebuilt at great cost in 1732.
The statue to Sir Hans Sloane, by Michael Rysbrach, stood in a niche
in the green-house wall. It was moved to the centre of the Garden
in 1751, where it still stands. The Garden was honoured by a visit
from the great Linnæus in 1736, and he noted in his diary: “Miller of
Chelsea permitted me to collect many plants in the Garden, and gave me
several dried specimens collected in South America.” Among the valuable
bequests to the Garden were collections of dried plants, now in
the British Museum of Natural History, and a library left by Dr. Dale
in 1739, on condition that “suitable and proper conveniences” were made
for them at the Physic Garden. They should be there still, and the new
buildings are eminently suited for their reception; and their use to
students would be very great, now that the Garden is well equipped for
supplying all the requirements for the modern teaching of botany.
[Illustration: CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN]
Before quitting these gardens of historic interest, there is one which
must not be forgotten, although its former charms have vanished, and
it can no longer claim such botanical curiosities as the Chelsea
Physic Garden--that is, the remains of John Evelyn’s Garden of Sayes
Court. The Garden is now enjoyed by numbers in that crowded district
of Deptford, through the kindness of Mr. Evelyn, the descendant of
the famous diarist, John Evelyn, who keeps it up as well as opens it
to the public. The Manor of Deptford was retained by the Crown in
James I.’s time, and Sayes Court was leased to Christopher Browne, the
grandfather of Sir Richard Browne, whose only daughter and heiress
John Evelyn married. After his wife had succeeded to the property,
and they had lived there some years and made the Garden, John Evelyn
purchased the freehold land from Charles II. The delight he took in
his garden, how he exchanged seeds and plants, imported rare specimens
from abroad, through his many friends, and grew them with success, is
well known. The ruthless way his treasures were treated by Peter the
Great was a sore trial to Evelyn. The Czar amused himself, among other
acts of vandalism, by being wheeled about the beds and hedges in a
wheelbarrow. The holly hedge, even, he partially destroyed. In writing
of the merits of holly in his “Sylva,” Evelyn says of this one: “Is
there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind,
than an impregnable Hedge a hundred and sixty feet in length, and seven
feet high, and five in diameter, which I can shew in my poor Gardens at
any time of the year, glittering with its armed and vernish’d leaves?
the taller Standards at orderly distances blushing with their natural
Corall. It mocks at the rudest assaults of the Weather, Beasts, and
Hedgebreakers.” This hedge has long since departed, but young hollies,
planted in groups on the same part of the Garden, keep up the old
associations. One wing of the house is standing, and is at present
used as a school. The walled garden on the south side is still there,
and on the north a wide terrace walk, with a straight grass lawn with
large beds, is in keeping with the old place. But instead of the views
over the river, and the Garden descending to the water’s edge, there
is a high rampart of the buildings of the Foreign Cattle Market, from
whence the sounds of lowing oxen mingle with the din of streets which
close round the Garden on the three other sides. In spite of these
drawbacks, it is delightful to know, that the surviving portion of the
once-beautiful Garden is fulfilling a want among the poor in a way that
would have appealed to the generous and kind-hearted author.
* * * * *
These are some of the chief gardens of historic interest, but it by no
means exhausts the list of the smaller ones rich in associations, green
courts attached to schools, almshouses, hospitals, or such-like, which
are hidden away in unexpected corners throughout London.