"Whatever
style may be adopted by the... gardener, ... [they] must be guided...
by certain rules, deduced from fundamental principles."
So what were the Conventions of English
Gardening during the Victorian Era?
The
following
are a number of primary sources from Victorian England that provide
some insight into the
debates over gardening conventions during this period.
Reverend Thomas James, 1839 (Roberts 42)
Reverend Thomas James, 1841, in Quarterly Review and
The
Carthusian
(Roberts 42)
Edward Kemp, 1850, How to Lay Out a Garden
(Roberts 44)
Edward Kemp, 1850, How to Lay Out a Garden
(Roberts 44)
Lawrence
Weaver re: Abbotswood, 1901 (Helmreich 216)
- Reverend Thomas James, 1839
(Roberts 42)
“Landscape
gardening has encroached too much upon gardening
proper; and this has had the same effect upon our gardens that
horticultural
societies have had on our fruits – to make us entertain the
vulgar notion that
size is virtue. If
I am to have a
system at all, give me the good old system of terraces and angled
walks, and
clipt yew hedges, against whose dark and rich verdure the bright
old-fashioned
flowers glittered in the sun.”
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- Reverend James, 1841 articles in
the Quarterly Review
and The Carthusian
(Roberts
42)
James
described his
plan to “combine the chief excellencies of
the artificial and natural styles; keeping the decorations immediately
about
the house formal, and so passing on by gradual transition to the
wildest scenes
of nature.”
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- Edward Kemp, How to
Lay Out a Garden, 1850 (Roberts 44)
“Few
characteristics of a garden contribute more to render
it agreeable than snugness and seclusion. They serve to make it
appear peculiarly
one’s own, converting it into a kind of sanctum…
Those who love their
garden often want to walk, work, ruminate, read, romp, or examine the
various
changes and developments of Nature in it; and to do so
unobserved…”
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- Edward Kemp, How to
Lay Out a Garden, 1850 (Roberts 44)
“Art
should be pretty obviously expressed in that part of
every garden which is in the immediate vicinity of the house, and may
sometimes
retain its prominence throughout the whole place.
In the latter case, terraces,
straight lines of
walks, avenues of
trees or shrubs, rows of flowerbeds, and geometrical figures, with all
kinds of
architectural ornaments, will prevail.
Considerable dignity of character
may certainly thus
be acquired; and,
if well sustained, the expression of high art will be a very noble
one.”
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- Lawrence
Weaver re: Abbotswood, 1901 (Helmreich 216)
“All
levels and flights of levels, planned with skill and
purpose, descend in quiet progression from the upper terrace to the
flower
garden, to the herbaceous border, to the sunken tennis court, and
beyond into
the surrounding park land of oaks and elms, leading the eye, still
descending,
through Burton Vale, then up to the sky-line where the ridge of Eyford
Hill
frames the picture.”
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