Fascinating as are the old courts and the galleries with their magnificent art collections, the grounds which surround the Palace are, in their way, no less enticing. Indeed, if we might judge by the thronging crowds in flower time, the gardens form for the majority of visitors the most attractive part of the place. These gardens, wonderfully varied and beautifully kept, are not by any means extensive for so noble a Palace, but they prove an unfailing delight. They are markedly divisible in character into three portions—the north where is the Wilderness and Maze; the south where are the Privy and Pond Gardens, the Great Vine House and Queen Mary’s Bower; and the east—or Great Fountain Garden—with its rich herbaceous border along the Broad Walk, its level lawns set with great jewels of floral colour, its compact yews, its radiating walks, its water-lily pond, and beyond the gleaming stretch of the Long Canal and the tall trees that border the Park. In all parts of these gardens are to be seen beauties that delight the eye and linger in the memory, and each of them successively draws the sightseers.

These gardens have seen many changes during the centuries of the Palace’s history, changes largely from one kind of formality to another, judging from the plans of them at various times. As I have said that the majority of visitors enter the Palace precincts by way of the Western Trophy Gate, and as such visitors would naturally reach the grounds by the eastern entrance beyond the cloistered Fountain Court, it may be well to say something first of the eastern gardens—which certainly, in summer, form the most florally gorgeous part of the whole. We come out here in the middle of the Broad Walk, which stretches from near the Kingston Road to the Thames’ side. In front of us, bordered by old yew trees, are gravel walks radiating to the House or Home Park, the centre one leading, round a fountain pond starred in summer with lovely water lilies of various colours, to the head of the Long Canal, where are many water fowl—swans, geese, and ducks of different species—expectant of the visitors’ contributions of bread or biscuit.

Right and left as we emerge from the Palace the Broad Walk stretches, inviting us in each direction with a brilliant display of many coloured flowers—more especially in spring and early summer, when the gardens, attractive at all times, are perhaps at their very best. Old plans of the grounds of Hampton Court show that these eastern gardens have seen the greatest changes during successive centuries. At one time the Long Canal stretched much closer to the Palace, and after it was shortened the intervening gardens were for a period a veritable maze of intricate ornamental beds with small fountains dotted about them; at another time they showed an array of formally cut pyramidal evergreens disposed along the sides of the walks. It was probably the coming of William and Mary to Hampton Court that caused special attention to be paid to the grounds, for Queen Mary appears to have been greatly interested in the matter. Many and various as have been the re-plannings it may be believed that never have the gardens looked better than at present, when taste in things floricultural has broken away from the formalism of scroll-pattern borders and indulgence in the eccentricities of topiarian art—is even, it is to be hoped, on the way to free itself finally from the ugliness of “carpet bedding”—when plants are largely grouped and massed instead of being placed in alternate kinds at regular intervals in geometrical patterns. Present day taste with its appreciation of garden colour, of masses and groups of particular kinds, instead of isolated plants dotted about with irritating regularity, is found beautifully exemplified in the numerous beds cut in the lawns of the eastern gardens, and in the long borders which run north and south of the palace along one side of the Broad Walk. Here, from the beginning of the year, when the patches of cerulean, “glory of the snow”, and of low-growing irises of a deeper blue, begin that procession which is soon to develop into a very pageantry of colour—from when myriad yellow crocuses first star the lawns with gold in February—is given a succession of changes that may well tempt the lover of gardens to Hampton Court again and again. These beds and borders with their succession of spring bulbs and summer flowers, their brilliant annuals and massed perennials are not only a delight to the eyes of all, but that they afford endless hints, are as it were horticulturally educational to garden-loving visitors, may be gathered from the frequency with which such visitors are seen to consult the name-labels of the various plants.

The southern end of the Broad Walk is semi-circular with an outlook over the river, upwards, to where Molesey Lock and Weir are cut from view by the hideous Hampton Court Bridge, and downwards, towards Thames Ditton and Kingston. It is one of the most charming views on the river near London, the many trees on islands and banks shutting off the neighbouring town. On a hot summer day, the decorated houseboats moored to the Surrey bank and the innumerable small craft passing up and down help to form a delightful and characteristic bit of the Stream of Pleasure. That the view is one that is well appreciated is shown by the fact that on such an afternoon the Water Gallery, as this view point is named, generally attracts and holds many of the visitors to the Palace.

THE LONG WATER IN WINTER

The name of the Water Gallery survives from that of the building which at one time stood here, the “dÉpendance” which Queen Mary occupied while the Palace was being rebuilt, and which was demolished when the alterations were completed. East from this point runs the Long Walk, parallel with, but well above, the towing path, and affording a good view along the river on one hand and glimpses of the park on the other. This walk led to the old Bowling Green and Pavilions. Some distance along it a gate gives on to the towing path leading to Kingston Bridge.

South of the Palace—shut off from the eastern gardens by a climber-covered wall—is the smaller but very beautiful Privy Garden, with its turf-banked terraces on either side, its sunken centre filled with a wonderful variety of shrubs and trees. From the terrace walk on the left we may look over the wall to the eastern gardens and park; along the right-hand terrace is formed Queen Mary’s Bower, an intertwisted avenue of trimmed and cut wych-elms, some of the distorted trunks of which might have inspired more than one of DorÉ’s Dante illustrations. This shady bower is in summer particularly delightful, and from the farther end of it is to be had, through and above the evergreens of this Privy Garden, a beautiful view of the south front of the Palace. At the farther end of the Privy Garden, fencing it from the towing path, are some magnificent iron gates and screens. Along the gravel walk, immediately against the south front of the Palace, are ranged in summer great tubs with orange trees, believed to be those originally planted here by Queen Mary—though it is not easy to realize that they are over three hundred years old! And close to this wall of the Palace stand two heroic Statues, Hercules with his club, and another; it might be thought, half of the quartette of figures that, as old views of the Palace show, at one time stood on the low columns which rise above the balustrading of the roof, only that quartette is said to have consisted of goddesses, since removed to Windsor. In an old engraving, dated 1815, two figures are still to be seen on the skyline.

Beyond the steps up to Queen Mary’s Bower, a gateway leads us to the farther Privy Gardens. On the right may be observed where Wren’s additions end abruptly against the windows of Queen Elizabeth’s Chambers, and her monogram is to be seen carved boldly above the first-floor window in a decorative ribbon pattern, while above the second-floor window are her initials beside a crowned Tudor rose, each carving having the date 1568.

Here we are in the Pond Garden—or series of gardens—on the right, over a low old wall, is a small turfed and flower grown enclosure with the long Orangery at the farther side. On the left is a close grown hedge, beyond which are a succession of small garden enclosures, only the centre one of which is kept up as a show place, and this is the delightful quadrangular enclosed space sometimes spoken of as the Dutch Garden. This sunk garden, with its turf, its stone walks, that are not walked upon, its small evergreens, cut by topiarian art into the semblance of birds, its low-growing plants rich in varicoloured flowers, its evergreen arbour at the farther end as a background to a statue of Venus, its little fountain in the centre, is a spot that always attracts visitors—attracts and holds them by its spell of quiet beauty.

At the farther end of the gravel walk is the glasshouse in which for close upon a hundred and fifty years has flourished the great grape vine, which always proves an enormous attraction to those who come to see the Palace. The vine—a Black Hamburg—was planted in 1768, and it annually bears about twelve hundred bunches of grapes, many incipient bunches being removed in accordance with the custom of viticulture to allow the rest to mature the better. The vine has been known to bear well over two thousand pounds weight—or about a ton—of grapes in a single season. It is not, however, though sometimes so described, the largest grape vine in England.

To the north of the Palace—reached by a gate in the wall of the Long Walk, or first seen by those who come to Hampton Court Palace through the Lion Gate—is the Wilderness, a half-cultivated place contrasting greatly with the parts of the grounds that we have already been visiting. Here are tall trees of various kinds, massed shrubs, and broad stretches of turf spangled with daffodils and other bulbs in the spring; within it is a smaller wilderness overlooked by many visitors forming a kind of wild garden, its many flowers growing upon the rocky banked sides of the tortuous paths, with groups of slender bamboo, flowering shrubs and brambles,—a place which is particularly fascinating in the late springtime.

Here, too, close to the Lion Gate, is that Maze which is always a popular feature with holiday-makers old and young. Between the Wilderness and the Palace lies the Old Melon Ground, now apparently utilized by the gardeners whose incessant work maintains the grounds of Hampton Court in so beautiful a state. West of the Wilderness is the Old Tilt Yard, long since given over from joustings and tiltings to the cultivation of plants, and not open to the public.

To go back to the eastern garden, we see at its farther edge the lime avenue, with beyond it the Home Park, the two separated by shady canals well grown with gorgeous water lilies and bordered by clumps of fine foliage plants. It was presumably in the Park near here that George Cavendish found Henry the Eighth engaged at archery practice when he came to tell him of the death of Wolsey. It was in this Park, at the farther end near Kingston Bridge, that Fox saw Oliver Cromwell just before his fatal seizure, and it was in this Park, it is believed, that the tripping of his horse over a molehill caused William the Third’s fatal fall. Just across the road bordering the northern boundary of the Palace grounds lies the great extent of Bushy Park, with its magnificent chestnut avenue; and mention may be made of the fact that had King William lived, and Wren’s plans been fully carried out, that avenue would have been the approach to the grand new Palace front which it was designed to make. As it is we have but such part of the Tudor palace as the rebuilders allowed to remain, and we have but such part of the Orange palace as destiny allowed William to complete.

What we have, however, is a splendid whole, consisting, it may be, of incongruous parts, yet one that for charm, for beauty generally and in detail, and for fullness of interest, has but few rivals. Whether we visit it on some quiet day in winter, or in the time when the grounds are at their floral best, and when there are many hundreds of people thronging the galleries and gardens on Sunday afternoons or on popular holidays, it always gives us the same feeling of satisfaction that comes of beautiful surroundings. In the smaller courts and in the shady cloisters may be found in the heat of summer the soothing sense that is one of the secret charms of haunts of ancient peace.

Cardinal Wolsey built himself a lordly pleasure house, unthinking of the fickleness of a monarch’s favour; Dutch William sought to make of it a rival to Versailles; and each, though he did not completely realize his design, may be said to have builded better than he knew—in providing for succeeding ages a place of beauty “in which the millions rejoice”.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland