Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/410

 310 STATE OF HORTICULTURE IN ENGLAND planted according to the taste of the owner. Numerous ilhis- trations in works of the fifteenth century shew that a bowUng- alley, and butts for the practice of archery, were not un- common features in gardens of that date. There is great reason to beheve that in this century the style of gardening in England was considerably modified by the introduction of the Flemish modes of decoration, which the connexion then formed between the courts of England and Burgundy would materially contribute to bring about. It is to this period that we may ascribe the first appearance of "mounts" in English gardens. This ornament was contrived, it would appear, to enable per- sons in the orchard to look over the enclosure wall, and in this respect it was analogous to the mound, or specidatorium, usually thrown up within the bailey of a Norman fortalice. When the garden happened to be situated in a park, and herds of deer browzed even up to its walls, the mount be- came useful as a point from whence, as honest Lawson observes, " you might shoote a bucke." These mounts were formed of stone, or wood " curiously wrought within and without, or of earth covered with fruit trees." They were thrown up, as Lawson notes, in " divers corners" of the orchard, and were ascended by " stares of precious workmanship." When con- structed of Avood the mount was often elaborately painted in gaudy colours. The accounts of the w^orks at Hampton Court in the time of Henry the Eighth contain many curious items relative to the decoration of the mounts erected in the garden of that palace, and also of the expenses for " anticke" works there. At the commencement of the sixteenth century the topi- ary art came into full practice in this country. Lawson, who wrote at the close of it and after an experience of half a cen- tury, observes, the lesser wood might be framed by the gardener " to the shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell : or swift running greyhounds : or of well sented and true run- ning hounds, to chase the deere, or hunt the hare. This kincle of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your coyne." 1 must now conclude these notes on medieval gardening, and defer to a future occasion the observations it was my in- tention to make on the agricultural economy of the English in early times. Fully conscious that the few notices, derived from widely difiercnt sources, Avliich are here presented in a connected form, do not exhaust or even add much that is new to the subject, I would hope that, such as they are, they may