“I confess that I should never care to adorn my garden with topiary or with carpet bedding; but I hope always to be cautious in making declarations in respect of such matters, that I may not appear to despise another man’s pleasures, or vainly desire to set up a standard of my own in opposition to the delightful variety that is ensured by the free exercise of individual taste and fancy.”—Shirley Hibberd.

“While perhaps not admiring these birds and beasts, we must, I think, in a measure agree with Loudon, that many old-fashioned gardens have suffered in losing the quaint forms of cropped yews, which added a certain charm to them.”—John Lowe, M.D., in “Yew Trees of Great Britain and Ireland.”

The dawn of the sixteenth century saw the commencement of what may be called the Golden Age of Topiary. It was also the beginning of an age of romance, of stirring deeds, of great discoveries; an age when men of genius were numerous, when history was being rapidly made, and when the art of gardening began to flourish freely. Though the times were stirring ones and there was not always “peace within our borders,” commerce grew and wealth increased, so that gardening became more and more popular and steadily grew more and more elaborate in design. To the existing style were added the extravagances of the French and the formalities of the Dutch schools, but these things did not all come to pass at once.

It is most probable that the Old and Formal English Gardens as we know or imagine them, were the development of at least two hundred years, and probably the type had not been reached until the reign of Charles II., notwithstanding such gardens are frequently alluded to as Elizabethan. This idea seems the more reasonable after a perusal of Withington’s “Elizabethan England,” for though the Editor gives us Harrison’s description of Gardens and Orchards, Woods and Marshes, Parks and Warrens, there is never a word that can be construed into a reference to Topiary, not even in his account of “the palaces belonging to the prince.”

Nevertheless, quaint gardens were formed before the time of Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Drake, Raleigh, and Gerard. A curious conceit in these old-time gardens was the formation of a mound in the pleasure grounds, where none previously existed, and this seems to have been quite the correct thing in the way of garden design even as late as Evelyn’s day, for we learn that he arranged for a “mountaine” in the family gardens at Wotton, in Surry. Leland, in his “Itinerary” (1540), refers to this feature in garden design in connection with the garden at Wrexhill Castle, near Howden, in Yorkshire. He says: “The Gardens within the mote, and the Orchards without were exceeding fair. And yn the Orchardes were mounts, opere topiorii, writhen about with degrees like the turnings in cokil shelles, to come to the top without payn.”

That Topiary had already a considerable hold upon the garden-loving public at this early date cannot be doubted. Very few of these ancient gardens remain unaltered at the present time, but in that most interesting book, “A history of Gardening in England,” the Hon. Alicia Amherst gives the plans of Sir Henry Dryden’s gardens at Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, which show that clipped yews are prominent features, as two rows of four trees each line one of the approaches, and these trees have a diameter of about ten feet. The author states that this garden, originally made in 1550, was altered in 1708, “and has defied the changes of fashion for nearly two centuries.”

Gerard (1545–1607), the famous old Herbalist who was gardener to Lord Burghley in the reign of Elizabeth, does not enlighten us as to the use of clipped trees, but Parkinson, another and equally famous Herbalist, who was born in 1567 and died about 1640, does give us a little information on the subject. Parkinson was Apothecary to James I., and Charles II. made him Botanicus Regius Primarius; he therefore had the advantage of exceptional opportunities for studying the plants of his time and their uses. Indeed some of the quaintest things ever printed are the accounts of the “Virtues” of the several parts of the plants described by Parkinson and by Gerard. Pointing out that the yew was largely used both for “shadow and an ornament,” Parkinson seems to regret that the privet had not received proper attention at the hands of Topiarists simply because of its widespread use as a hedge plant, and he advocates its further employment by remarking that “to make hedges or arbours in gardens... it is so apt that no other can be like unto it, to be cut, lead, and drawn into what forme one will, either of beasts, birds, or men armed or otherwise.”

Because of its comparatively slow rate of growth the yew has been the subject usually employed by topiarists, while box is a good second in point of popularity. Both these trees or shrubs have the additional merit of longevity. Wordsworth points out both the slow growth and longevity of the yew in his lines:—

Heslington, near York, still boasts an ancient Topiary garden, where all the clipped trees are of yew. This, as well as the clipped hedges of Rockingham, and the hedges and clipped trees at Erbistock, date, according to the Hon. Alicia Amherst, from about 1560. Other trees and shrubs were also used by the tonsile artists, and even Rosemary was not omitted. Barnaby Googe (about 1578) observed that the women folk planted it and trimmed it into shapes “as in the fashion of a cart, a peacock, or such things as they fancy.”

William Harrison, Rector of Radwinter, and Canon of Windsor, who wrote “A Description of England” contained in “Holinshed’s Chronicles,” has already been referred to. He was a most observant man and one who in his own picturesque language “had an especiall eye unto the truth of things”; from 1586 to 1593 he was Canon of Windsor, and therefore anything he has to say about gardens is of unusual interest. His keen patriotism shines brightly through all his writings, and his high opinion of his own land is not in any way reduced when he comes to discourse upon gardens, for he writes: “I am persuaded that, albeit the gardens of the Hesperides were in times past so greatly accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were possible to have such an equal judge as by certain knowledge of both were able to pronounce upon them, I doubt not but he would give the prize unto the gardens of our days, and generally over all Europe, in comparison of those times wherein the old exceeded.”

Early in the succeeding century, however, we come upon some more positive evidence of the use of Topiary work. Lawson, in 1618, shows more clearly that Topiary had become an important branch of the art of gardening, and that the designs carried out by some of the artists were, to say the least of it, remarkable. As indicative of the progress already made, he states: “Your gardener can frame your lesser wood to the shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell: or swift-running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare. This kind of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your coyne.”

In the reign of Charles II. (1669–1685), garden design and garden ornamentation reached a degree of extravagance not previously attempted and not subsequently repeated. This was the time when Le Notre rose to be the most famous gardener in Europe, a time when Louis XI. was King of France (1643–1715). During this period there was a great striving after effect on the part of all possessed of ample means, while both aristocrat and plebeian desired and loved to be dazzled by brilliance or enchanted by the novel and singular. From Johnson we learn that during a residence at the court of France, Charles II. became enamoured of the French style of ornamental gardening introduced by Le Notre. This style differed chiefly from that already in vogue in its magnificence; everything was carried out more elaborately and regardless of expense. “The alleys were lengthened, but still there were alleys, jets d’eau, mazes, parterres and statues, clipt trees and mathematically formed borders as of yore.” It is said that the extravagance in garden ornamentation at Versailles was designed and carried into effect by Le Notre at a cost of two hundred million francs, or over £8,250,000. The great features were huge marble-edged water-basins, elaborate fountains, an abundance of masonry for the terraces, and clipped yew and box, making a sum total described at a much later date by Mr Wm. Robinson, in his “Parks and Gardens of Paris” as “the deadly formalism of Versailles.”

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.

Topiary gardening reached its height during the reign of William and Mary (1689–1702). William III., Prince of Orange, brought with him a taste for clipped yews, and also for elaborately designed iron gates and railings. He accentuated the prevailing taste. Turning again to Johnson, we find garden design “was now rendered still more opposed to nature by the heavy additions of crowded hedges of Box, Yew, etc., which, however, by rendering the style still more ridiculous, perhaps hastened the introduction of a more natural taste which burst forth later.” Some further idea of the prevalence of clipped trees is obtained from Celia Fiennes, who, in her chronicles of a journey “Through England on a Side Saddle in the time of William and Mary,” makes frequent reference to alleys of clipped trees and to yew and cypress cut into “severall forms.” William III. commenced the Kensington Gardens, and to alter a disfiguring gravel pit he employed the services of those famous Brompton nurserymen, London and Wise. In our time such a spot would in all probability be converted into a dell, with water and rock gardens, but London and Wise erected a mimic fortification, making the bastions and counterscarps of clipped yew and variegated holly. That this production was “long an object of wonder” can be easily understood, though whether it was one for “admiration” is open to question, notwithstanding that it had many admirers and was known as the “Siege of Troy.”

Vegetable sculpture seems now to have reached its limit of popularity and design. Hazlitt, in his “Gleanings in old Garden Literature,” hits off the situation admirably when he writes: “But it was to the Hollanders that London and his partner were indebted for that preposterous plan of deforming Nature by making her statuesque, and reducing her irregular and luxuriant lines to a dead and prosaic level through the medium of the shears. Gods, animals, and other objects were no longer carved out of stone; but the trees, shrubs and hedges were made to do double service as a body of verdure and a sculpture gallery.”

Evelyn, the celebrated diarist, who lived throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, and just over five years of the eighteenth, strongly censured the prevalent method of clipping fruit trees into regular form, as well he might, but he claimed to be the first to bring the yew into fashion for hedges, declaring it to be “as well for a defence as for a succedaneum to cypress, whether in hedges or pyramids, conic spires, bowls or what other shapes.” And further he adds, “I do again name the yew, for hedges, preferably for beauty and a stiff defence, to any plant I have ever seen.” Evelyn’s residence from 1652 to 1694 was Sayes Court, Deptford, a home made famous to students of history because of its occupation by Peter the Great, of Russia, in 1698, to whom it was sub-let by Admiral Benbow. Peter the Great did not take the same care of the garden as Evelyn had taken, and his destruction, in part at least, of a famous holly hedge, caused the owner to regard the Russian Czar as a “right nasty tenant.” An old writer informs us, with reference to Sayes Court, that Evelyn had “a pleasant villa at Deptford, a fine garden for walks and hedges, and a pretty little greenhouse with an indifferent stock in it. He has four large round philareas, smooth clipped, raised on a single stalk from the ground, a fashion now much used. Part of his garden is very woody and shady for walking; but not being walled, he has little of the best fruits.”

The beginning of the end was not now far to seek. One of our greatest modern landscape gardeners, Mr H. E. Milner, has written: “Precise designs of clipped box and yew are not out of place, if the building has a character that is consonant with such an accompaniment.” Not satisfied with a few clipped trees in suitable positions, or with a part of the garden devoted to examples of Topiary, owners and gardeners alike, in the times I have briefly reviewed, seemed to have laboured to fill their gardens with illustrations of geometric figures, in box or yew; with the quaintest patterns and weirdest shapes, caricaturing birds and beasts, and imitating architecture and things of common use. Distorted vegetation met the eye everywhere, and there was little of the natural and beautiful to relieve the general monotony. It was the excessive use of Topiary that led to its own downfall and caused Batty Langley to ask, “Is there anything more shocking than a stiff, regular garden?”