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BEECH HEDGE AND BOWLING-GREEN AT LEVENS

Charles II. encouraged elaborate garden design, and, with it, Topiary; it was under his orders that Le Notre himself laid out the semi-circular garden at Hampton Court. Gibson, who made a tour of London gardens in the reign of the “Merry Monarch,” shows by his writings that the chief features of these establishments were the terrace walks, evergreen hedges, “shorn shrubs in boxes,” and orange and myrtle trees.

In the earlier part of the seventeenth century the gardens of Bilton and Chilham were designed, with an accompaniment of clipped trees, while later in the century Sir William Temple, who negotiated the triple alliance between England, Sweden, and the Netherlands, laid out a Dutch garden at Moor Park. He had a large affection for the Dutch style of gardening, but was nevertheless quick to see that big formal gardens and their elaborate designs and masonry cost more to maintain in prim order than many who possessed them could well afford. It was also about this time that the now famous Topiary garden at Levens Hall, in Westmoreland, was laid out by Beaumont, one of Le Notre’s disciples. According to the inscription under his portrait at Levens Hall, Beaumont was “Gardener to James II. and Colonel James Grahme. He laid out the gardens at Hampton Court and at Levens.” It was probably in some alteration of the Hampton Court gardens that Beaumont took part.