The Tudor garden was a homely enclosure, like the living room in a simple house containing few, but good-sized, apartments. Sometimes one large enclosure answered many purposes. First of all, it contained the medicinal herbs. Then it answered the purpose of the pleasure garden, providing alleys and arbors for people to walk on and sit under, besides ground for games. Finally, it supplied a mixture of vegetables and flowers for use and ornament. The orchard, if not actually a part of the garden, was placed near it and similarly ornamented.
A number of sun-dials were also scattered about, both for use and ornament. Henry VIII apparently ordered them by the dozen. Sun-dials had existed in England before the Roman invasion, but interest in them seems to have been especially keen during the sixteenth century. The first book in English devoted to dialing was published in 1533, and was largely a translation from Witkendus. At this period the actual dial was more fanciful than at a later date and often formed an armillary sphere.
A water supply was considered a very important adjunct to the garden. A central feature was often a well or fountain fed by a spring, or a cistern. Cisterns were made of lead and decorated in such a way as to make them very ornamental.
Various games were played in the garden or its vicinity. Bowling-alleys and greens for archery were common. All that was required was a stretch of good, firm turf or gravel. Tennis was another favorite game. Henry VIII was passionately fond of tennis. Sometimes he used to play in the walled court for "close tennis play " at Hampton Court, which is the oldest one in England, and has since served as a model for many others.
The intermingling of ornamental with useful plants continued to be common in Tudor gardens. As an innovation, Andrew Borde recommended that there be two divisions separated by a broad-hedged alley. One of these sections was to be devoted to pot-herbs, the other to "quarters and pulse together with a place for bee-hives." Sometimes, too, fruit trees were placed in a special enclosure. Generally, in the smaller gardens, all sorts of vegetation were included, and herbs grown for medicinal purposes were side by side with those cultivated principally for their beauty.
Among the more ornamental plants grown in the garden were the acanthus, asphodel, auricula, amaranth (flower gentle or flower amor), cornflower (or bottle blew, red, and white), cowslip, daffodil, daisy, gilly-flower (red, white, and carnation), hollyhock (red, white, and carnation), iris (flower de luce or the flos delictarum of the Middle Ages), Indian eye, lavender, larkspur (larkes foot), lily of the valley, lily (white and red), double marigold, nigella Romana, pansy or heart's-ease, pink, peony, periwinkle, poppy, primrose, rocket, roses of many sorts, including the sweetbrier or eglantine, snap-dragon (snag dragon), clove gillyflower (sops-in-wine), sweet-william, sweet-john, star of Bethlehem, star of Jerusalem, stock gillyflower, tuft gillyflower, velvet flower (French marigold), violet, wallflower, and besides, sweet-smelling herbs, such as mint and marjoram.
The shape of the flowerbeds was considered more important than their contents. The four quarters formed by the main alleys, which intersected the middle of the garden, were enclosed by a latticework fence or striped railings fastened to posts or to carved beasts. These quarters were subdivided into knots. The knot was either a geometrical pattern or the outline of some fanciful shape, such as a dragon, kept in place by a coping of wood, brick, stone, or tiles, and edged with box or some other border plant. The design of the knot was known as open or closed, according to whether it was merely outlined with a border plant, and strewn inside the outlines with colored sands, or was filled with growing flowers.
A maze or labyrinth was another favorite ornamental design, and sometimes took the place of the knots. Occasionally it was planted with hedges high enough to conceal the intricacies of the paths, and to force the uninitiated to wander long upon the outskirts, unable to penetrate within; but often it was merely outlined with lavender or some other low growing plant, and served simply as a form of decoration. The central object point was usually an arbor or a clipped tree.
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