London parks and gardens

In writing of the private gardens of London it is difficult to know where to begin. There are a few large and beautiful gardens, but for the most part the smaller they are, and the less there is to write about them of interest to the general reader, the more they are of value to the happy possessors. It is the minute back-garden, invaded by all the cats of the neighbourhood, with a few plants on which an infinity of time and trouble, care and thought, have been expended, that is the real typical London garden. What a joy to see the patches of seeds come up in the summer, and with what expectation are the buds on the one lilac bush examined to see if really at last it is going to flower! What pleasure the fern dug up on a summer holiday gives, as it bravely uncurls its fronds year by year! What delight is occasioned if the Virginian creeper, which covers the wall, grows more luxuriantly than those of the houses on either side, and what excitement if it really turns red once in a way in October, instead of shrivelling up to an inglorious end! What grief is felt when the fuchsia, purchased as a fitting centre-piece to the formal geranium bed, loses its buds one by one before they expand! These and many similar joys and sorrows are the portion of those who tend small gardens in London. How fascinating it is to look into back-gardens as the train passes over viaducts out of the heart of the town. Certainly the differences in their appearance show what skill and devotion can accomplish. Nothing but real love of the plants, and a tender solicitude for their welfare, can induce them to exist in the confined areas and stifling atmosphere of the average London garden. But even these inauspicious surroundings may be brightened by flowers. When those absolutely ignorant of the requirements of plant life take to gardening in the country, they have Nature at hand to help them. The sunlight, air, and good soil supplement their deficiencies of knowledge, and, though terribly handicapped by careless planting, unsuitable situations, want of water, and such drawbacks, the plants can struggle with success to maintain their natural beauty. But let the ignorant try in town to grow plants, where all the conditions militate against them, instead of assisting, and the results are very different. For instance, many a small back-garden, or even window box, is planted year after year with no renewal of the soil. The crumbling mould, which is either caked hard or pours like dust from the hand, is completely exhausted, and the poor plants are starved. They should be given plenty of what in gardeners’ slang is called “good stuff,” if they are to grow in such adverse conditions. A little of the money expended on plants which dwindle and die, spent on manure or good soil, would better repay the would-be gardener. Many plants require a good deal of water when making their growth, and if that is denied them they will not thrive, no matter how great the solicitude for their welfare in other ways. Washing the leaves, especially of evergreens, and scrubbing stems is also a great help, as leaves choked with dirt have no chance of imbibing the life-giving properties necessary to the plant.

The back-garden has many enemies besides soot and fogs. Cats are one of the greatest trials, and most destructive. Sparrows also are very mischievous. They will pick the flower-buds off trees just at the critical moment. A wistaria climber laden with young blossoms they will destroy in a few days, just before the purple buds appear. But, notwithstanding all these pests and difficulties, it is surprising how many things will not only survive, but grow well. The task becomes more and more easy as the houses recede from the City. In St. John’s Wood, Bayswater, or Earl’s Court, in Camberwell or Stoke Newington, plants will grow better than in Bloomsbury or Southwark. But yet it is possible to grow many things even in Whitechapel.

It is impossible to prescribe the best plants for all London gardens, as there is such a great difference in soil and aspect, that what does well in one part will not flourish in another. The heavy soil of Regent’s Park, for instance, is well suited to peonies, which do not seem at home in Chelsea. On the other hand, some of the showy, hardy spring flowers, such as wallflowers and forget-me-nots, die off with fogs much more quickly in the Regent’s Park than in other districts. Any deciduous tree or shrub thrives better than an evergreen or a conifer in any part of London. The fresh growth of clean leaves every year, by which the plant absorbs much of its nourishment, must necessarily be better for it than dried-up, blackened leaves. Among flowering shrubs, a great number grow sturdily in London. Laburnums of all kinds, thorns in many varieties, flower well; lilacs grow and look fresh and green everywhere, but cannot be depended on always to flower; almonds, snowy medlars, double cherries, weigelas or diervillas succeed; broom, Forsythias, acacia, syringa, many kinds of prunus, ribes, rose acacia, Guelder rose, Japanese red peach, Kerria japonica, Hibiscus Syriacus, or Althæa frutex, are all satisfactory, and many more could be mentioned. Yucca gloriosa will stand any amount of smoke, and Aralia spinosa does well in many parts; and among evergreens, Arbutus Andrachne can be recommended. Fruit-trees, pears, and apples are charming when in bloom, and in a large space, or to cover a wall, figs are valuable.

Alpines grow astonishingly well, and though a considerable percentage will die from the alternating damp fogs and frost in the winter, many will really establish themselves, and be quite at home, much nearer the heart of London than Dulwich, where many have been cultivated. “I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows” in London—not a green, mossy bank, but rather a blackened rockery; still the slope is really covered with large patches of wild thyme, purple with bloom in the summer, carefully marked by the London County Council “Thymus serpyllum,” for the benefit of the inquiring. Several of the other thymes, which form good carpets, will also grow. Antennaria dioica, a British plant, forms a pretty silvery groundwork on beds or rockeries, and nothing seems to kill it. Saxifrages in great numbers are suitable, beginning with the well-known mossy green hypnoides, to the giant known as Megasia cordifolia, also sedums, semper-viviums, aubrietias, phloxes, tiarella, dianthus in variety; and several other Alpines have succeeded in different parks and gardens, such as Androsace sarmentosa, Dryas octopetala, yellow fumitory, Cotoneaster frigida, the small ivy Hedera conglomerata, Achillea tormentosa, Lychnis Haageana, Linnæa borealis, Azalea procumbens, Campanula garganica, only to mention some that have been noticed; even edelweiss has been successfully grown in the centre of London.

A few annuals will make a good show, and nothing is better in a window-box or really dingy corner than Virginian stock; but, as a rule, it repays trouble best to rear perennials. Seedling wallflowers, sweet Williams and Canterbury bells, and such like, make a border bright. The great secret of success in growing annuals is to thin them out well; the patches of seedlings are too often left far too much overcrowded. This “thinning” is even more important than good soil and careful watering. Marigolds thrive best of all, and will often seed themselves, but a few other annuals can be safely recommended.

• Candytuft.
• Catchfly. (Silene pendula and
• armeria).
• Erysinum perofskianum (a kind of
• Treacle mustard).
• Eschscholzia.
• Flax (scarlet).
• Godetias.
• Ionopsidium acaule (violet cress).
• Larkspur (annual).
• Love-in-a-mist (Nigella).
• Nasturtiums.
• Phlox drummondi.
• Snapdragon (Antirrhinum).
• Toadflax (Linaria).

Very many things may succeed well that are not specially noted here, but the following list of fifty herbaceous plants have all been seen really growing, and coming up, year after year, in private gardens in London. Some are not so sturdy as others; for instance, neither alyssum nor phlox flourish as well as thrift or the members of the iris tribe, but all are hardy in London. Thomas Fairchild, who had a famous nursery garden at Hoxton, writing of City gardens in 1722, gives his experience of plants that succeed best, and many on his list are those that do well still. He specially notes some growing in the most shut-in parts of the City, which were flourishing: fraxinella in Aldermanbury, monkshood and lily of the valley near the Guildhall, bladder senna in Crutched Friars, and so on, mentioning many of those which still prove the most smoke-resisting. One large, coarse, but handsome plant deserves mention, as it grows so well it will seed itself, and that is the giant heracleum. It propagates itself in the garden of Lowther Lodge, Kensington Gore, and in much more confined spaces, even in the garden used by the London Hospital, near the Mile End Road.

LIST OF FIFTY HERBACEOUS PLANTS

• Alyssum.
• Auricula.
• Bachelors’ buttons.
• Buglos.
• Campanula—several varieties.
• Candytuft.
• Carnations.
• Centaurea.
• Chrysanthemums.
• Columbines.
• Comfrey.
• Crane’s bill.
• Creeping Jenny.
• Crown Imperial.
• Cyclamen.
• Day lilies.
• Dictamnus fraxinella (burning bush).
• Doronicum (leopard’s bane).
• Erigeron (Fleabane).
• Funkias (Plantain lilies).
• Galega officinalis.
• Golden rod (solidago).
• Heucheras.
• Hollyhocks.
• Iris—several varieties, especially those with rhizomes and non-bulbous roots.
• Japanese anemone.
• Larkspur.
• Lilies of the valley.
• Lilies—
•     Canadense.
•     Candidum.
•     Davuricum.
•     Lancifolium (speciosum).
•     Martagon dalmaticum.
•     Pyrenaicum.
•     Tigrinum.
• London Pride (also many other Saxifrages).
• Lupin.
• Mallow.
• Michaelmas daisies.
• Monkshood.
• Montbretia.
• Pansies.
• Periwinkle.
• Phlox.
• Polygonum.
• Primroses (also Japanese primulas, cowslips, and polyanthus).
• Pyrethrum.
• Rock roses.
• Solomon’s seal.
• Southernwood.
• Speedwell (Veronica amethystina and others).
• Spiræa (S. aruncus, venusta, &c.).
• Sunflower (perennial, including Harpalium).
• Thrift.
• Tradescantia.
• Trollius.

Of climbing plants the Virginian creeper, which makes a green bower of so many London houses, must come first, but the real grape vine is quite as successful. In several parts of London vines laden with grapes may be seen in the autumn, by those on the look-out for such things. One vine in Buckingham Gate had forty bunches of fruit that ripened in 1906. On one branch of a vine, near Ladbroke Square, fourteen purple bunches were hanging in a row at the same time, and in other parts of the town well-cared-for vines will bear well. Wistaria also thrives, and jasmine, yellow or white, and ivy. Besides these in constant use, for more special gardens there are Everlasting peas, Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia), clematis, Jackmani, Montana, or the Wild Traveller’s Joy, and Passion flower; also convolvulus, Cobæa scandens, and gourds of all kinds for the summer.

Spring flowers planted in autumn succeed, and even those in pots or boxes in windows or on roof gardens flower freely. Hyacinths, crocus, tulips, daffodils, and narcissus do well; snowdrops are not so successful as a rule, but Spanish Iris will make a good show when the earlier bulbs are over. The minute green-house which often opens out of a staircase window in London houses can easily be made gay in spring by this means. Acorns and chestnuts sown in the autumn in shallow pans and covered with moss make a delightful small forest from May onwards. Foxgloves dug out of the woods will flower well in these dingy little green-houses, and are a delightful contrast to the ferns which will flourish best in them. A few other plants are sturdy for this purpose, such as the fan palms, Chamærops excelsa, Fortunei, and humilis, Aspidistra, Aralia Sieboldii, Selaginella Kraussina, the Cornish money-wort (Sibthorpia). Geraniums will flower well, and Imantophyllums (or Clivias) are one of the most accommodating plants for such small green-houses, as although they take up an undue share of room on account of the large pots necessary, they will flower well every year.

Roses only do fairly well; but though they sometimes will last two or three years, they are apt to give disappointments and must often be renewed. The climbing roses, however, in some gardens are very charming. In one of the prettiest in London—that belonging to Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, in Grove End Road—the illustration shows how charmingly an iron trellis is covered with red and white roses. The garden is most artistically arranged and is a good illustration of how much can be made of a small space. A large evergreen oak overhangs the basin with a stone margin and splashing fountain, on which water-lilies gracefully float. The variety and harmony of the whole garden, with its paths shaded by fig-trees, apples and pears, cherries and lilacs, sunny borders with Scotch roses, Day lilies, foxgloves, and iris, and formal fountains, all in a small space, yet not crowded, and bright with flowers, is delightful. Another small garden in Kensington—tended by Lady Bergne—of quite another type, contains nearly all the flowers that have been mentioned as growing well in London. It is only the stereotyped long narrow strip at the back of the house; but by putting a path and rock-work and pools of water on one side, and having grass and flower borders on the other, backed by flowering shrubs and ferns at the shaded end, a great variety of plants have been grown successfully.

In most London gardens very little enterprise is shown. The old system of bedding out is adhered to. Of the large London houses standing by their own lawns, none have gardens of any horticultural interest. Montagu House is on the site of the extensive gardens of Whitehall, and the present lawn is where the bowling green, with its gay throng of players, lay in former years, and the terrace keeps up the tradition of the wide terraces that descended from the palace to the green. The turf is still fair and green, and is brightened in summer by lines of geraniums, white daisies, and calceolarias. Devonshire House garden, on the site of the famous one belonging to Berkeley House that covered all the present Square, is in the same way merely planted with the usual summer bedding plants. Lord Portman’s house, 22 Portman Square, is where Mrs. Montagu, the Queen of the Blue-Stockings, held her court. The present garden, with spacious lawn, has no horticultural peculiarity, but its historical interest lies in the fact that it was here that Mrs. Montagu entertained the chimney-sweeps, every year on the 1st of May. She is said to have done so, to give these poor children “one happy day in the year,” and when the horrors and tragedies attending the lives and often deaths of these cruelly treated little creatures is realised, it is not to be wondered at that one lady was humane enough to befriend them.

A quaint pathetic poem by Allan Cunningham, written in 1824, records in characteristically stilted language an incident supposed to have occurred to Mrs. Montagu. A sad boy, whose life was spent in climbing flues, is pictured, and one lady he supplicates turns away—“And lo! another lady came,” and spoke kindly to him, asked him why he thus spent his life, listened to his tale of how he was an orphan and “sold to this cruel trade.”

Her kindness is recorded in other poems, and in her lifetime took the practical shape of a sumptuous spread of beef and plum-pudding on the lawn of her house in Portman Square.

Grosvenor House garden, with terrace and lawn sloping down to large trees, has natural advantages for a beautiful garden, but a row of beds along the terrace are the only flowers. The owners of these large London gardens have such an abundance of floral display elsewhere that no real gardening seems to be attempted. To understand what are the horticultural possibilities of London, it is in the minute back-garden that the lesson must be learned, and the subject studied. Holland House is an exception to this rule, for there the most beautiful garden, in keeping with the magnificent old house, is kept up, and the greatest care and skill were bestowed on it with wonderful results by the late Earl of Ilchester.

No house, perhaps, has more associations than Holland House. Its history has been so often written, that to go over it in detail would be superfluous. Built by Sir Walter Cope, while Elizabeth was on the throne, from the designs of Thorpe, it doubtless from the first had a good garden, as in those days great care was expended on the surroundings of a house, for people realised, as did Bacon, that, “men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection.” The second stage in its history, when it passed to Henry Rich, through his marriage with Sir Walter Cope’s daughter and heiress, was even more eventful. He enlarged the house, which became known as Holland House after Charles I. had created him Baron Kensington and Earl of Holland. His wonderful personal charm, inherited from his mother, the “Stella” of Sir Philip Sidney, made him a general favourite; but not even his attachment to the Queen preserved him from disloyalty, although in the end he fought for the King’s cause. While he was on the Parliamentary side, Holland House was often the meeting-place of its leaders. Cromwell and Ireton talked together in the centre of the field in front of the house, so that their raised voices, occasioned by Ireton’s deafness, should not be overheard. For a time after the Restoration, Holland House was tenanted by various people of note, to whom it was let out in suites by the widowed Countess. One among them, the Frenchman Chardin, who became famous by his travels to Persia, it has been surmised, may have brought some of the rare plants to the garden. The connection with Addison came from his marriage with the Dowager Lady Warwick, to whom the house belonged, the second Lord Holland having succeeded his cousin as Earl of Warwick. He must have delighted in the gardens of Holland House, although they were hardly so wild as the ideal one he describes in the Spectator. There he said, “I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life.” No doubt he found some solace in the beauties of Holland House garden to cheer the depression of the unhappiness the marriage had brought him. The brilliant days of Holland House continued after it changed hands, and was owned by Henry Fox, second son of Sir Stephen Fox, who was chiefly instrumental in starting Chelsea Hospital. Henry Fox eloped with Lady Caroline Lennox, and was afterwards created Lord Holland. He took great interest in his garden, and was advised and helped by the well-known collector and horticulturist, Peter Collinson. This friend was the means of introducing many new plants to this country—a genus Collinsonia was named after him—and he must have been pleasant and good besides, for his biographer says to him was attached “all that respect which is due to benevolence and virtue.” He was in correspondence with leading men in America, and was constantly receiving seeds and plants, and his own garden contained “a more complete assortment of the orchis genus than, perhaps, had ever been seen in one collection before.” No doubt some found their way to the gardens of his friend, Lord Holland. How astonished they both would be could they peep for a moment at the orchids displayed in the tents of the Horticultural Society’s shows, which have been allowed to take place in the park where Cromwell conversed? At this time the gardens must have been considerably remodelled, as the taste for the formal was waning, and the “natural” school taking its place. One of the pioneers of the natural style, Charles Hamilton, assisted the new design. His own place, Painshill, near Cobham, in Surrey, embraced all the newest ideas, groves, thickets, lakes, temples, grottos, sham ruins, and hermitages. A contemporary admirer, Wheatley, says of Painshill, it “is all a new creation; and a boldness of design, and a happiness of execution attend the wonderful efforts which art has there made to rival nature.” No doubt this adept in the new art would introduce many changes. The “Green Lane” was a road shut up by Lady Holland, and Hamilton is said to have suggested turfing it. He appears to have been fond of woodland glades and turfed the shaded walks in his own creation, so it seems very likely that the idea of grass was his. In the Green Lane, Charles James Fox, son of the first Lady Holland, who closed the road, loved to walk, and still the Green Lane is one of the most attractive spots in all London. The fame of Holland House increased as time went on, and some of its most brilliant days were during the time of the third Lord Holland, when Lady Holland drew all the wit and fashion of London to her salon. Although it is no longer a country place, and though no highwaymen have to be braved to reach it, and though its surroundings are completely changed, the garden of Holland House was never more beautiful than it is to-day. It is easy to forget it is a London garden, the flowers look so clean and fresh. The long vista into the rose garden from the lawn, which lies to the north, is flanked on either side with pink roses, that pretty free-flowering Caroline Testout. To the west, overlooking the Dutch garden, the view is even more attractive, and the garden so well harmonises with the house that it is easy to picture the beaux in wigs, and ladies in hoops and powder, moving among the box-edged beds. On the south, the wide terrace shown in the sketch was made in 1848, when the footpath was altered and the entrance to the house changed to the eastern side. The stone basin in the centre was put in by the late Lord Ilchester. The hybrid water-lilies, raised by Marliac, grow well in it, and that rather delicate, but most beautiful of the Sagittarias, montevidensis has flowered there. The raised terrace on the arches of the old stables, which encloses one side of the garden and is covered with a tangle of ivy, affords a charming view over the Dutch garden. Beyond is the old ballroom, orangery and garden enclosed by arches of cut limes. A terrace runs to the south of the Dutch garden and orangery, and the Italian garden which lies here is in itself as complete a contrast to the box-edged beds of the Dutch garden as is the Japanese garden, a new addition which lies further to the north. It was near here that the fatal duel between Lord Camelford and Colonel Best took place in 1804. There is yet another small enclosed garden cut off by thick yew hedges and fat hollies from the rest. In it is the seat inscribed with lines to the poet Rogers:—

In this garden, year by year, dahlias have grown ever since they were first successfully grown in England. In 1789 the dahlia came for the first time from the New World to the Old. It was then sent to Spain, and that same year Lady Bute procured some from Madrid. She was not, however, successful in growing it and it quite died out, until it was reintroduced by Lady Holland in 1804. The plants remained rare in England for some years. It was being grown in France, Germany, and Holland, but little had been done to improve the original plant. When, however, a larger supply was available in England after 1814, the English growers took it up, and produced, before long, the round very double flowers which soon became the rage. In stilted style a writer in 1824 describes the dahlia mania, after giving the history of its introduction. “It was left to English capital and perseverance,” he says, “to illuminate the northern part of the globe by the full brilliancy of these floral luminaries.” Thus in extravagant language he continues to sing the praises of the dahlia. It is curious that the name is now generally pronounced as if it were “dalea,” forgetful of the fact that there is a flower, something like a vetch, called “Dalea” by Linnæus, after Dr. Samuel Dale, who died in 1739, a well-known botanist and friend of Ray. The dahlia was named long after in honour of the Swedish botanist Dahl.

The so-called “Japanese garden” was made by the late Lord Ilchester. It is extremely pretty, but is entirely an English idea of what a Japanese garden is like, and, however pleasing it may be to the uninitiated, would probably shock the Japanese gardener, who is guided by as precise rules in his garden, as the painter in his art. In Japan the rules governing the laying-out of a garden are so exact that, apparently, it requires years of study to acquire the rudiments. The Japanese garden at Holland House, which is pleasing to the English eye, consists of a little stream descending through grassy lawns, with groups of plants, a stone lantern, and rustic bridges, and water plants at each little pond. The delightful Iris kæmpferi flowers well, and yuccas, which, by the way, come from America, and not Japan; neither do Aralia spinosa or Saxifraga peltata, which together form charming groups, with auratum lilies in the summer and other Japanese plants. The French hybrid water-lilies, of varying shades of pink, red, and yellow, here too make a picture, with their brilliant blossoms floating on the miniature pools—while bamboos, maples, and eulalias, true natives of Japan, make a soft and feathery background. Above the Japanese garden there is a well-furnished rock garden, and between that and the roses, which make such a grand display on the north of the house, green walks through rhododendrons and flowering shrubs unite the gardens. There are some really fine trees, as well as all the charming flowers, in the grounds. Near the bridge leading to the Japanese garden there is a beautiful evergreen oak and rare forest trees, while on the lawn some old cedars, planted by Charles James Fox, are showing signs of decrepitude, although the delightful picturesque effect a cedar always has, adds one more to the many charms of this, the most beautiful as well as the largest of London gardens.

There is a charming group of houses standing in their own grounds still left on Campden Hill, although Campden House has been demolished and its site built over within the last few years. The property on which Campden House stood, and some authorities say the house itself, was won over some game of chance in James I.’s time by Sir Baptist Hicks, afterwards Viscount Campden, from Sir Walter Cope, the builder of Holland House, hard by. It was to Campden House that Queen Anne’s little son, the Duke of Gloucester, was taken for country air. The air is still pleasant on these heights, and the open tract of Holland Park gives so much freshness that plants flourish wonderfully. There are good gardens attached to many of the houses—Cam House, Blundell House, Aubrey House, Thornwood, Holly, and Moray Lodges, and several others. Holly Lodge is noteworthy as having for a few years been the residence of Lord Macaulay. There are some charming trees in the grounds, even yews (which are among the first to suffer from smoke) looking well; a good old mulberry and silver elms, and a camellia in a border near the wall, which often flowers out of doors, although some years the half-open buds drop off from the effects of frosty fogs.

Cam House has one of the most charming gardens. It is now lived in by Sir Walter Phillimore, and has been in his family for some 150 years. It was well known as Argyll Lodge, as the late Duke bought the lease and made it his town residence from the time he first took office in Lord Aberdeen’s ministry in 1852. Before that it was known as Bedford Lodge, as the Duchess of Bedford, step-mother of Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, had lived there and laid out and planted most of the garden. The “two very old oaks, which,” wrote the Duke of Argyll, “would have done no discredit to any ancient chase in England,” are still to be seen. The Duke was also delighted with the wild birds which there made their homes in the garden; in fact, he says in his Memoirs, it was the sight of the “fine lawn covered with starlings, hunting for grubs and insects in their very peculiar fashion,” the nut-hatches “moving over the trees, as if they were in some deep English woodland,” the fly-catchers and the warblers, that made him decide to take the house. During the half-century he lived there many of the birds, the fly catchers, reed-wren, black cap, and willow-wren, and nut-hatches, deserted the garden, but even now starlings and wood-pigeons abound, and, what is even more rare in London, squirrels may be seen swinging from branch to branch of the old trees. Besides the two old pollard oaks there are good beech and copper-beech, elder, chestnuts, snowy medlar, sycamore, several varieties of thorn, and a large Scotch laburnum, Laburnum alpinum, which flowers later than the ordinary laburnum, and is therefore valuable to prolong the season of these golden showers. The leaves are broader and darker, and growth more spreading. On the vine trellis is a curious old vine with strongly scented flowers. All the plants which thrive in London are well grown in the charming formal garden and along the old wall, which is covered with delicious climbing plants. So luxuriously will some flowers grow, that the hollyhocks from this garden took the prize at the horticultural show held in the grounds of Holland House, in a competition open to all the gardens in the Kingdom.

At Fulham there is a charming garden, with trees which would be remarkable anywhere, and appear still more beautiful from their proximity to London. These trees in the grounds of Broom House have fared on the whole better than those at Fulham Palace, hard by. It is separated from the Palace by the grounds now attached to the club of Hurlingham. Of Hurlingham there is not much early history. Faulkner, the authority for this district, writes in 1813: “Hurlingham Field is now the property of the Earl of Ranelagh and the site of his house. It was here that great numbers of people were buried during the Plague.” The same authority mentions: “The Dowager Countess of Lonsdale has an elegant house and gardens here in full view of the Thames,” and Broom House is shown on Rocque’s map of 1757. The estate was bought by Mr. Sulivan from the Nepean family in 1824, and his daughter, Miss Sulivan, keeps up the garden with the utmost good taste and knowledge of horticulture. The ailanthus, with a trunk 10 feet 4 inches in girth at 4 feet from the ground, is probably one of the finest specimens in England. The one in Fulham Palace garden is exactly the same girth, but does not appear to be so lofty. The liquidamber is also a magnificent tree, and the false acacia is quite as fine as the one in Fulham Palace, and was probably planted at the same time. There are still two cedars left, although the finest was blown down some years ago, and the timber afforded panelling for a large room and many pieces of furniture. Perhaps the most beautiful of the trees is the copper or purple beech. Not only is it very tall and has a massive trunk (14 feet 6 inches at 2 feet from the ground), but the shape is quite perfect, and its branches are furnished evenly all round. There are also good evergreen oaks, elms, chestnuts and Scotch firs. There is a large collection of flowering shrubs, which are in no way affected by the smoky air. Standard magnolias, grandiflora, conspicua and stellata, many varieties of the delightful autumn-flowering plant, the Hibiscus syriacus, known to older gardeners as Althæa frutex, and recommended under that name by Fairchild in 1722 as suited to London, Cratægus pyracantha, Choysia, Pyrus spectabilis, and many other equally delightful shrubs all appear most flourishing. These, together with herbaceous plants and ornamental trees, well grouped in a garden of good design, with the river flowing at the foot of it, make the grounds of Broom House rank among the most attractive about London.

A few of the gardens, like this one, have succeeded in keeping the real stamp of the country, in spite of the encroachments of the town and the advance of trams and motor omnibuses, but they are every day becoming more scarce. Hampstead and Highgate have many such, and here and there, to the north and on the south of the river, such delightful spots are to be found, although the temptation to cut them up and build small red villas on the sites is very great. Towards the north of London there are many small gardens which are bright and attractive, and without going so far as Hampstead, pleached walks and small but tastefully arranged grounds are met with. Within Regent’s Park there are several charming gardens round the detached villas, which have been already noticed in the chapter on that Park. The two most interesting from a horticultural point of view are St. Katharine’s and St. John’s Lodges. The fountain in the former is the frontispiece to this volume, and that view says more than any elaborate description. It might be in some far-away Italian garden, so perfectly are the sights and sounds of London obliterated. On a still, hot day, when the fountain drips with a cool sound and there is a shimmering light of summer over the distant trees beyond the terrace, the delusion is perfect. Most of the herbaceous plants which take kindly to London grow in the border—hollyhocks, day lilies, poppies, peonies, pulmoneria and lilies, while there is a large variety of flowering shrubs—ribes, lilacs, buddleias, shumachs and Aralia spinosa. The kitchen-garden produces good crops of most of the ordinary vegetables. The garden is arranged with a definite design; there is nothing specially formal, no cut trees or anything associated with some of the formal ideas in England, but there is method in the design; the trees and plants grow as Nature intended them, but they are not stuck about in incongruous disorder and meaningless, distorted lines, as is so often thought necessary, in designing a garden or “improving” a park.

St. John’s Lodge has also a well-thought-out garden, some of it of a distinctly formal type. The coloured illustration of it is taken from a part of the garden enclosed with cut privet hedges, with a fountain in the centre, on which stands a statue of St. John the Baptist, by Mr. Johnes. Between the four wide grass walks there are masses of herbaceous plants, backed by rhododendrons, which, as the picture shows, stand out with brilliant colour in summer against the green background. This garden opens into a bowling-green enclosed by cut lime trees, and a cool walk for summer shaded by pleached lime trees. A seductive broad walk bordered with fruit-trees is another feature. This attractive garden has been made within the last eighteen years. The conception of it was due to Lord Bute, and the designing and carrying out to Mr. Schultz. The other side of the house, with a wide terrace and park stretching down toward the water, has no special horticultural feature, but the formal garden is full of charm, and the plants are thriving and trees growing up so fast there is no trace of its newness. It only shows how much can be done where knowledge and good taste are displayed.

St. James’s Park is still skirted by garden walls—Stafford, Clarence, and Marlborough Houses, as well as St. James’s Palace, though their gardens are hardly as elaborate as those of former years. The garden of that Palace delighted the Sieur de la Serre, who accompanied Marie de Medicis when she came to pay a visit to Henrietta Maria and Charles I. and was lodged in St. James’s Palace. After describing the house, “there were, besides,” he writes, “two grand gardens with parterres of different figures, bordered on every side by a hedge of box, carefully cultivated by the hands of a skilful gardener; and in order to render the walks on both sides which enclosed it appear more agreeable, all sorts of fine flowers were sowed.... The other garden, which was adjoining and of the same extent, had divers walks, some sanded and others grass, but both bordered on each side by an infinity of fruit-trees, which rendered walking so agreeable that one could never be tired.”

The garden of Bridgewater House was a little slice taken off Green Park. On the advice of Fordyce, the Crown in 1795 granted a lease, on certain conditions, to the Duke of Bridgewater and other proprietors near their respective houses, on the ground that it would improve rather than injure the Park. In 1850 the question arose whether the plans Barry had just made for the garden of Bridgewater House infringed the terms of the lease, and Pennethorne, architect to the Office of Works, had to report on the question. It being finally settled that the proposed wall and terrace would not hurt the Park, the alterations were allowed.

Last, but by no means least, either in size or importance, the gardens of Buckingham Palace must be glanced at. The Palace is so modern, when compared with the older Royal residences, that it is easy to forget the history of the forty acres enclosed in the King’s private garden, yet they have much historical interest. In the time of James I. a portion of the ground was covered by a mulberry garden, which the King had planted, in pursuance of his scheme to encourage the culture of silkworms, in 1609. That year he spent £935 in levelling the four acres of ground and building a wall round it for the protection of the trees. A few years later most of the enclosure became a tea-garden, while part was occupied by Goring House. There are many references to these famous tea-gardens, called the “Mulberry Garden,” in plays and writings of the seventeenth century. Evelyn notes in his “Diary,” on 10th April 1654: “My Lady Gerrard treated us at Mulberry Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceeding cheated at, Cromwell and his partisans having shut up and seized Spring Garden, which till now had been the usual rendezvous for the ladies and gallants at this season.”

Goring House stood just where Buckingham Palace does now, and was the residence of George Goring, Earl of Norwich, and of his son, with whom the title became extinct. It was let in 1666, by the last Earl of Norwich, to Lord Arlington, and became known sometimes as Arlington House. It was burnt in 1674, and Evelyn notes in his “Diary” of 21st September: “I went to see the great losse that Lord Arlington had sustained by fire at Goring House, this night consumed to the ground, with exceeding losse of hangings, plate, rare pictures, and cabinets; hardly anything was saved of the best and most princely furniture that any subject had in England. My lord and lady were both absent at the Bath.” Buckingham House, which was built in 1703 on the same site for the Duke of Buckingham, must have been very charming. Defoe describes it as “one of the beauties of London, both by reason of its situation and its building.... Behind it is a fine garden, a noble terrace (from whence, as well as from the apartments, you have a most delicious prospect), and a little park with a pretty canal.” The Duke of Buckingham himself gives a full description of his garden in a letter to a friend, telling him how he passed his time and what were his enjoyments, when he resigned being Privy Seal to Queen Anne (1709). “To the garden,” he writes, “we go down from the house by seven steps into a gravel walk that reaches across the garden, with a covered arbour at each end. Another of thirty feet broad leads from the front of the house, and lies between two groves of tall lime trees, planted on a carpet of grass. The outsides of those groves are bordered with tubs of bays and orange trees. At the end of the broad walk you go up to a terrace 400 paces long, with a large semicircle in the middle, from where are beheld the Queen’s (Anne’s) two parks and a great part of Surrey: then, going down a few steps, you walk on the bank of a canal 600 yards long and 17 broad, with two rows of limes on either side. On one side of this terrace a wall, covered with roses and jessamines, is made low to admit the view of a meadow full of cattle just beneath (no disagreeable object in the midst of a great city), and at each end is a descent into parterres with fountains and waterworks. From the biggest of these parterres we pass into a little square garden, that has a fountain in the middle and two green-houses on the sides ... below this a kitchen-garden ... and under the windows ... of this green-house is a little wilderness full of blackbirds and nightingales.” This is truly an entrancing picture of a town garden.

The waterworks, those elaborate fountains then in vogue, were supplied by water pumped up from the Thames into a tank above the kitchen, which held fifty tons of water. Buckingham House was then a red-brick building, consisting of a central square structure, with stone pillars and balustrade along the top, and two wings attached to the main building by a colonnade. It was this style of house when King George III. bought it, originally for a dower-house for Queen Charlotte, instead of Somerset House, where the Queens-Dowager had previously lived. These formal gardens were not suited to the taste of the time, and George IV. had all the garden altered, as well as the house rebuilt by Nash. The whole of the parterres, terraces and fountains and canal were swept away, and most of the lime-trees cut down. A wide lawn and five acres of ornamental water, glades, walks and thickets took their place. When first made the water was severely criticised by a writer of the landscape school, the chief fault he found being that too much was visible at once from the path which encircled it, so that the limits were not well concealed. This seems to have been altered to the satisfaction of later critics. Dennis, writing in 1835, gives a plan in which the path has been made a little distance from the water’s edge, and the outline broken by clumps of trees and a promontory, which later on was turned into an island, on which a willow from Napoleon’s tomb at St. Helena is said to have been planted, though no old willow now exists. This writer gives great praise to Aiton, who superintended all the execution of the plans. The pavilion in the grounds was added in 1844, and decorated with paintings of scenes from Milton’s Comus by Eastlake, Maclise, Landseer and other artists, with borders and gilt ornaments by Gruner.

During the last four years his Majesty has had a great deal done to improve the grounds. His appreciation of what is beautiful in gardening has led him to effect several changes, which, while keeping the park-like character of the gardens, have added immensely to their scenic beauty and horticultural interest. The dead and dying trees and others of poor and stunted growth have been removed, giving air and light to those remaining. Several good specimens of plane, lime, elm, beech, ash, ailanthus and hawthorn have thus secured more space to develop. A very large assortment of all the best flowering shrubs which will flourish in London have taken the place of worn-out evergreens. The best of the hollies, arbutus and healthy evergreens have been encouraged by careful attention. The great object in laying out the garden originally was naturally to obtain as much privacy as possible, and the earth taken out of the lake was formed into a great bank, which was thickly planted to screen the stables and distant houses. This bank, which was stiff and formal in appearance, has now been artistically broken by planting and rock-work—not merely by a few stones, which would seem small, unnatural, and out of place, but by bold crags, over which roses climb, and where gorse, savin and broom, and countless other suitable plants look perfectly at home. The aspect of the lake is also greatly enhanced by the substitution of rustic stone bridges for the iron structures, The water’s edge is well furnished with iris and other water-loving plants—the finest Marliac lilies brighten its surface—and the stiff, round island is now varied by striking rocky promontories and is prettily adorned with broom and cherries.

The colossal vase by Westmacott, executed as a memento of the Battle of Waterloo, has lately been placed on one of the lawns in an amphitheatre of trees. It stands in front of his Majesty’s summer-house, which is quaint in design, and was brought from the old Spring Gardens at Whitehall. The views down the wide glades, with the groups of tall trees, the bridges, the herbaceous borders, and the wealth of flowering shrubs, make the garden altogether one of singular charm considering it is even more truly “in the midst of a great city” than when the Duke of Buckingham described the same spot nearly 200 years ago.

The Buckingham Palace Gardens show how much judicious planting can do, and how much is lost in many of the parks as well as gardens by not sufficiently considering the decorative value of plants. The old landscape gardeners, in their desire to copy nature and depart from all formality, forgot the horticultural part of their work in their plans for the creation of landscapes. They had not studied the effects which skilful planting will produce, and ignored flowers as a factor in their scenery. They had not got the wealth of genera which the twentieth century possesses, and of which, in many instances, full use is made. But in a review of London Parks and Gardens, it is impossible not to notice effects missed as well as success achieved. The immense advance gardening has made of late years, and the knowledge and wide range of plants, makes it easier to garden now than ever before. The enormous number of trees and flowers now in cultivation leaves a good choice to select from, even among those suitable for the fog-begrimed gardens of London. The carpets of spring flowering bulbs, the masses of brilliant rhododendrons, the groups of choice blossoming trees, which so greatly beautify many of the parks and gardens, are all the result of modern developments. Experience, too, has pointed out the mistakes in landscape gardening, which is for the most part the style followed in London, and it should be easy to avoid the errors of earlier generations. In formal designing, also, the recent introductions and modern taste in flowers should have a marked influence. In all the parks and gardens, public and private, the chief aim should be to make the best use of the existing material, to draw upon the vast resources of horticulture, which have never been so great as at the present time, and thus to maintain the position of superiority of London gardens among the cities of the world.