Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/643

 KINGSTON HUNDRED

��KEW

��with bolection mouldings and fluted pilasters with the bases ornamented in low relief and Corinthian capitals. Over the doorway between the two (in the dining-room) is a carved head, probably of the I yth century. On the first floor is a similar long passage from north to south, communicating with the stairs at the north end. East of the latter in the north-east angle is the 'queen's boudoir' which has an 18th- century dado and a ribbed panelled ceiling with allegorical figures in low relief. To the south of this is the ' queen's drawing-room ' which is lined with 18th-century panelling with bolection moulds, but has an earlier frieze with raised strap orna- ment ; the fireplace has inlaid marble work and is flanked by grey marble pillars with alabaster capitals. The ' king's bedroom ' and ante-chamber east of the passage at the south end and ' queen's bedroom ' and ante-chamber at the north end have nothing worthy of mention. In one of the rooms on the second floor, east side, is a Tudor fireplace of stone with moulded jambs and a four-centred flat arch ; the spandrels are carved with shields and foliage ; the fireplace is at least a hundred years earlier than the present building, and may be a relic of the earlier building. Some others of the top rooms preserve the panelling and a door or two of the original house.

Kew Gardens originated in the private garden of Sir Henry Capell, the friend of John Evelyn, who is said to have brought fruits and rare trees from France." He built two greenhouses for oranges and myrtles, which roused Evelyn's admiration, and he contrived palisades of reeds painted with oil to shade the oranges during the summer. 8 " John Evelyn adds, however, that there were too many fir trees in the garden." In the i8th century the grounds at Kew were laid out by the landscape gardener Lancelot Brown, 8 * and between 1757 and 1762 Sir William Chambers the architect was em- ployed by the Princess of Wales to adorn the gardens with buildings. 81 In an account of the palace and grounds, dedicated by Chambers to the Dowager Princess, he expatiated on the lack of all natural advantages. 84 According to him the soil was barren," without wood and water, it was dead flat with no prospect, and he took credit for the contrivances that had transformed it from a waste into a garden. An orangery was built under his care in 1761. The Physic or Exoteric garden was begun in 1760 ; the centre of it was occupied by an immense bark house, 60 ft. long, 20 ft. wide, and 20 ft. high. The flower garden, divided by walks, led to the menagerie, a collection of pens and cages of rare birds surround- ing a large basin of water. The pagoda was built by Chambers, as well as various semi-Roman and oriental buildings such as the Temples of the Sun, of Bellona, of god Pan, of Aeolus, a Moresque building, the theatre of Augusta, a Corinthian colonnade, and so on. 86 A good many of these erections were still standing in

��1 840." The Pantheon or Temple of Military Fame was erected to commemorate Nelson's victory in Aboukir Bay. 88 In 1759 William Aiton, author of the Hortus Ketoensii, was the manager of Kew Botanic Gardens, and in 1783 of the royal forcing and pleasure gardens of Kew and Richmond.' 9 His son William Townsend Aiton succeeded him. 80 Queen Charlotte had her own flower-garden at Kew. Mrs. Papendieck relates how the queen's gardener, Mr. Green, was rearing orange trees with great care ; but as the queen could not afford to rebuild the hot-houses, and the Board of Works would not, as it was the queen's private garden, the growth of the trees was stunted. 91 In 1854 George Bentham the botanist presented his collections and books to Kew, in return for which a room there was assigned to him, where he worked daily at descriptive botany. 9 * Hanover House, where Ernest Duke of Cumberland, King of Hanover, dwelt from 1830 to 1831, is now the Herbarium, 95 and Cambridge Cottage, which used to be inhabited by Augustus Duke of Cambridge, is now the museum of British forest productions. 94 The Queen's Cottage in Kew Gardens was used by Queen Charlotte and the princesses as a sort of summer-house, or afternoon tea- room. When Kew Gardens were thrown open, at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign, she kept this cottage and some 40 acres round it for her own use, whence its name. She appears, however, to have gone there very seldom, and in 1897 it was also thrown open to the public. The grounds were opened on i May 1 899. The cottage, which is thatched, con- sists of three rooms only, one upstairs and a sitting- room and kitchen on the ground floor. Part of the lands round are covered with thick wood ; the rest used to be laid out, but latterly has been allowed to grow wild. 95

Until the middle of the i8th century there was no bridge across the Thames from Kew to Brentford. A ferry was granted by Henry VIII to John Hale, 96 servant to Henry Morris, but the inhabitants of Kew brought a suit against him, in which it was pleaded that ' for time out of mind ' they had had the right of free passage across the Thames, and now, they said, John Hale ' would suffer no man to pass with any manner of boat, but only in his boat, exacting and requiring a certain sum for every passage over there.' In reply John Hale declared that the kings had always been accustomed to grant the ferry by their patents, enabling the holder of the ferry to charge for every man and horse one half penny and for every man, woman, and child one farthing, 97 There appears to be no record of the judgement given, but the inhabitants evidently lost the suit. In 1631-2 Charles I granted the ferry late in the tenure of Walter Hickman to Basil Nicoll and John Samp- son. 98 In 1691 William III granted protection against the pressgang to William Rose and Mar- maduke Greenaway, as their services were essential

��7' Frederick Scheer, Kew and in Gar- dm, 13.

80 John Evelyn, Diary (ed. Bray), 951,

5H-

> Ibid. 451. M Diet. Nat. Biog.

M Ibid.

81 Sir W. Chambers, Plant tf Gardens And Buildings at Kewt.

85 Sir Joseph Hooker has made exactly the tame complaint.

��84 Sir W. Chambers, Plans of Gardtns and Buildings at Knv.

87 F. Scheer, Kew and its Gardtns, 43.

88 Ibid. 44.

8 Diet. Nat. Biog. Ibid.

91 Journ. of Mrs. Paftndieck, 5 1.

M Diet. Nat. Biog.

93 Journ. of Kew Guild (1907), 359. The Church House was the earlier home of the Duke of Cumberland, and was re- visited by the late blind king in 1853.

485

��Hanover House belonged to a Mr. Theo- bald in 1771, according to a map still extant, and then to a Mr. Hunter, who died in iSlz, and was called Hunter House. M Ibid.

Ibid. (1899), 6.

L. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 1417 (10).

7 Star Chamber Proc. Hen. VIII, voU 6, fol. 60-1.

S.P. Dam. 1603-10, p. 199.
 * > Pat. 7 Chas. I, pt. i, no. 6 ; Col,

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