32 minute read
The publication of this collection of reproductions of water-colour drawings would have been impossible without the willing co-operation of the owners of the originals. Special acknowledgment is therefore due to them for their kindness and courtesy, both in consenting to such reproduction and in sparing the pictures from their walls. On pages xi. and xii. is given a full list of the pictures, together with the names of the owners to whom we are so greatly indebted. We have also had the valuable assistance of Mr. Marcus B. Huish, of The Fine Art Society, who has taken the greatest interest in the work from its inception. G. S. E. G. J....
6 minute read
The English gardens in which Mr. Elgood delights to paint are for the most part those that have come to us through the influence of the Italian Renaissance; those that in common speech we call gardens of formal design. The remote forefathers of these gardens of Italy, now so well known to travellers, were the old pleasure-grounds of Rome and the neighbouring districts, built and planted some sixteen hundred years ago. Though many relics of domestic architecture remain to remind us that Britain was once a Roman colony, and though it is reasonable to suppose that the conquerors brought their ways of gardening with them as well as their ways of building, yet nothing remains in England of any Roman gardening of any importance, and we may well conclude that our gardens of formal design came to us from Italy, inspired by those of the Renaissance, though often modified by...
3 minute read
The climate of North Lincolnshire is by no means one of the most favourable of our islands, but the good gardener accepts the conditions of the place, faces the obstacles, fights the difficulties, and conquers. Here is a large walled garden, originally all kitchen garden; the length equal to twice the breadth, divided in the middle to form two squares. It is further subdivided in the usual manner with walks parallel to the walls, some ten feet away from them, and other walks across and across each square. The paths are box-edged and bordered on each side with fine groups of hardy flowers, such as the Hollyhocks and other flowers in the picture. The time is August, and these grand flowers are at their fullest bloom. They are the best type of Hollyhock too, with the wide outer petal, and the middle of the flower not too tightly packed. Hollyhocks...
4 minute read
Forty years ago, lying lost up a narrow lane that joined a track across a wide green common, this ancient timber-built manor-house could scarcely have been found but by some one who knew the country and its by-ways well. Even when quite near, it had to be searched for, so much was it hidden away behind ricks and farm-buildings; with the closer overgrowth of old fruit trees, wild thorns and elders, and the tangled wastes of vegetation that had invaded the outskirts of the neglected, or at any rate very roughly-kept, garden of the farm-house, which purpose it then served. What had been the moat could hardly be traced as a continuous water-course; the banks were broken down and over-grown, water stood in pools here and there; tall grass, tussocks of sedge and the rank weeds that thrive in marshy places had it all to themselves. But the place was...
6 minute read
Bulwick Hall , in Northamptonshire, the home of the Tryon family, but, when the pictures were painted, in the occupation of Lord and Lady Henry Grosvenor, is a roomy, comfortable stone building of the seventeenth century. The long, low, rather plain-looking house of two stories only, is entered in an original manner by a doorway in the middle of a stone passage, at right angles to the building, and connecting it with a garden house. The careful classical design and balustraded parapet of the outer wall of this entrance, and the repetition of the same, only with arched openings, to the garden side, scarcely prepare one for the unadorned house-front; but the whole is full of a quiet, simple dignity that is extremely restful and pleasing. Other surprises of the same character await one in further portions of the garden. Passing straight through the entrance gate there is a quiet...
5 minute read
The gardens at Bramham in Yorkshire, laid out and built near the end of the seventeenth century, are probably the best preserved in England or the grounds that were designed at that time under French influence. Wrest in Bedfordshire, and Melbourne in Derbyshire of which some pictures will follow, are also gardens of purely French character. It is extremely interesting to compare these gardens with those of a more distinctly Italian feeling. Many features they have in common; architectural structure and ornament, close-clipped evergreen hedges inclosing groves of free-growing trees; parterres, pools and fountains. Yet the treatment was distinctly different, and, though not easy to define in words, is at once recognised by the eye. For one thing the French school, shown in its extremest form by the gardens of Versailles, dealt with much larger and more level spaces. The gardens of Italian villas, whether of the Roman Empire or...
7 minute read
The gardens of Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire, the property of Earl Cowper, but occupied for the last five-and-twenty years by Mr. W. D. Fane, though perhaps less well preserved than those of Bramham, still show the design of Henry Wise in the early years of the eighteenth century. There had formerly been an older garden. Wise’s plan shows how completely the French ideas had been adopted in England, for here again are the handsome pools and fountains, the garden thick-hedged with yew, and the bosquet with its straight paths, green-walled, leading to a large fountain-centred circle in the thickest of the grove. The whole space occupied by the house and grounds is not of great extent; it is irregular and even awkward in shape, and has roads on two sides. The treatment is extremely ingenious; indeed, it is doubtful whether any other plan that could have been devised would have...
3 minute read
This venerable pile, one of the oldest continuously-inhabited houses in England, stands upon a knoll of rising ground at the southern end of the tract of rich alluvial land known as the Vale of Berkeley, that stretches away for ten miles or more north-eastward in the direction of Gloucester. Within two miles to the west is the Severn, already a mile across and rapidly widening to its estuary. On the side of the higher ground the town creeps up to the shelter of the Castle and the grand old church, on the lower is a level stretch of water-meadow. Seen from the meadows some half-mile away it looks like some great fortress roughly hewn out of natural rock. Nature would seem to have taken back to herself the masses of stone reared by man seven and a half centuries ago. The giant walls and mighty buttresses look as if they...
12 minute read
The end of June and beginning of July—when the days are hot and long, and the earth is warm, and our summer flowers are in fullest mass and beauty—what a time of gladness it is, and of that full and thankful delight that is the sure reward for the labour and careful thoughtfulness of the last autumn and winter, and of the present earlier year! The gardens where this reward comes in fullest measure are perhaps those modest ones of small compass where the owner is the only gardener, at any rate as far as the flowering plants are concerned; where he thinks out good schemes of plant companionship; of suitable masses of form and stature; of lovely colour-combination; where, after the day’s work, comes the leisurely stroll, when every flower greets and is greeted as a close friend, and all make willing offering of what they have of scent...
3 minute read
In large gardens where ample space permits, and even in those of narrow limits, nothing is more desirable than that there should be some places, or one at least, of quiet greenery alone, without any flowers whatever. In no other way can the brilliancy of flowers be so keenly enjoyed as by pacing for a time in some cool green alley and then passing on to the flowery places. It is partly the unconscious working out of an optical law, the explanation of which in every-day language is that the eye, being, as it were, saturated with the green colour, is the more ready to receive the others, especially the reds. Even in quite a small garden it is often possible to arrange something of the sort. In the case of a place that has just one double flower-border and a seat or arbour at the end, it would be...
3 minute read
Brympton d’Evercy in Somersetshire—not far from Montacute, the residence of the Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane—is a house of mixed architectural character of great interest. A large portion of the earlier Tudor building now shows as the western (entrance) front, while, facing southward, is the handsome façade of classical design, said to be the work of Inigo Jones, but more probably that of a later pupil. The balustraded wall flanking the entrance gates—the subject of the picture—appears to be of the time of this important addition, for it is better in design than the balustrade of the terrace, which was built in the nineteenth century. But the terrace is of fine effect, with the great flight of steps midway in its length that lead down to a wide unspoilt lawn. This again passes to the fish-pond, then to parkland with undulating country beyond. The treatment of the ground is admirable. Fifty...
4 minute read
Equidistant from Pittenweem and St. Monan’s, in Fifeshire, and a mile from the sea, stands Balcaskie, the beautiful home of Sir Ralph Anstruther. The park is entered from the north by a fine gateway with stone piers bearing “jewelled” balls, dating from the later middle of the seventeenth century. The entrance road is joined by two others from east and west, all passing through a park of delightful character. The road leads straight through a grassy forecourt walled on the three outer sides by yew hedges, and reaches the door by a gravelled half-circle formed by the projection on either side, of the curved walls of the offices and stables. The house, of the middle seventeenth century, though just too late to have been built as a fortress, retains much of the character of the older Scottish castles, but adds to it the increased comfort and commodiousness of its own...
8 minute read
Crathes Castle in Kincardineshire presents one of the finest examples of Scottish architecture of the sixteenth century. It is the seat of Sir Robert Burnett of Leys, the eleventh baronet and descendant of the founder. Profoundly impressive are these great northern buildings, rising straight and tall out of the very earth. As to their lower walls, they are grim, forbidding, almost fiercely repellent. There is an aspect of something like ruthless cruelty in the very way they come out of the ground, without base or plinth or any such amenity—built in the old barbarous days of frequent raiding and fighting, and constant need of protection from marauders; when a man’s house must needs be a strong place of defence. This is the first impression. But the eye travelling upward sees the frowning wall blossom out above into what has the semblance of a fairy palace. It is like a straight,...
7 minute read
Kellie Castle in Fifeshire, very near Balcaskie, is another house of the finest type of old Scottish architecture. The basement is vaulted in solid masonry, the ground-floor rooms have a height of fourteen feet; the old hall, now the drawing-room, is nearly fifty feet long. A row of handsome stone dormers to an upper floor, light a set of bedrooms, which, as well as the main rooms below, have coved plaster ceilings of great beauty. There is no certain record of the date of the oldest part of the castle. It is assigned to the fourteenth century, but may be older. The earliest actual date found upon the building is 1573, and it is considered that the mass of the castle, as we see it now, was completed by that date, though another portion bears the date 1606. It belonged of old to the Oliphants, a family that held it...
4 minute read
Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, one of the great houses of England, is, with others of its approximate contemporaries of the later half of the sixteenth century, such as Longleat, Wollaton, and Montacute, an example of what was at the time of its erection an entirely new aspect of the possibilities of domestic architecture. The country had settled down into a peaceful state. A house was no longer a castle needing external defence. Hitherto the homes of England had been either fortresses, or had needed the protection of moats and walls. They had been poorly lighted; only the walls looking to an inner court, or to a small walled garden could have fair-sized openings. No spacious windows could look abroad upon open country, field or woodland. But by this time such restriction was a thing of the past, and we see in these great houses, and in Hardwick especially, immense window...
4 minute read
Montacute in Somersetshire, built towards the end of the sixteenth century by Sir Edward Phelips, is another of that surprising number of important houses built on a symmetrical plan that arose during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. As the house was then, so we see it now; unaltered, and only mellowed by time. The gardens, too, are of the original design, including a considerable amount of architectural stonework. The large entrance forecourt is inclosed by a high balustraded wall, with important and finely-designed garden houses on its outer angles. The length of the side walls is broken midway on each side by a small circular pillared pavilion with a boldly projecting entablature, crowned with an openwork canopy and a topmost ornament of two opposite and joining rings of stone. The piers of the balustrade are surmounted by stone obelisks, and the large paved landing, forming a shallow court at the...
8 minute read
It would seem to be a law that the purest and truest human pleasure in a garden is attained by means whose ratio is exactly inverse to the scale or degree of the garden’s magnificence. The design, for instance, of a Versailles impresses one with a sense of ostentatious consciousness of magnitude; out of scale with living men and women; whose lives could only be adapted to it, as we know they were, by an existence full of artificial restraints and discomforts; the painful and arbitrarily imposed conditions of a tyrannical and galling etiquette. So we think also of our greatest gardens, such as Chatsworth. It is visited by a large number of people who go to see it as a large expensive place to gape at, but surely not for the truest love of a garden. So it is with many a large place; the size and grandeur of...
5 minute read
There is perhaps no garden in England that has been so often described or so much discussed as that at Levens in Westmorland, the home of Captain Jocelyn Bagot. It was laid out near the beginning of the eighteenth century by a French gardener named Beaumont. There is nothing about it of the French manner, as we know it, for it is more in the Dutch style of the time, and has become in appearance completely English; according perfectly with the beautiful old house, and growing with it into a complete harmony of mellow age, whose sentiment is one of perfect unison both within and without. Forward of the house-front, in a space divided by intersecting paths into six main compartments, is the garden. Flower-borders, box-edged on both sides, form bordering ornaments all round these divisions. The inner spaces are of turf. At the angles and at equal points along...
4 minute read
In Eastern Suffolk, within a few miles of the sea, is this, the country home of the Hon. William Lowther. The house, replacing an older one that occupied the same site, is of brick and stone, built in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. A moat, inclosing an unusually large area, and formerly entirely encompassing the house and garden, is now partly filled up; but one long arm remains, running the greater part of the length of the house and garden; a shorter length bounding the inclosed garden on the opposite side. The longer length of moat approaches the house closely on its eastern face, and then forms the boundary of a large and beautifully-kept square lawn, with fine old cedars and other trees. Following this southward is a double walled garden, with the main paths, especially those of the nearer division, bordered with flowers. Beyond these again is...
6 minute read
Near a quiet village in Warwickshire, and in close relation to its accompanying farm buildings, is this charming old manor house. It is not upon a main road, but stands back in its own quiet place on rising ground above the Avon. Everything about it is interesting and quite unspoilt. The wooden hand-gate, with its acorn-topped posts, that stands upon two semi-circular steps may not have been of the pattern of the original gate—it has an eighteenth-century look—but it is just right now. It leads into a half dark, half light, double arcade of splendid old clipped yews. Looking from the gate they seem to be tall walls of yew to right and left, showing the projecting porch of the house at the end; but, passing along, there are seen to be openings between every two trees, each of which gives a charming picture of the lawns and simple flower...
3 minute read
Condover Hall near Shrewsbury is a stately house of important size and aspect—one of the many great houses that were reared in the latter half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Its general character gives the impression of severity rather than suavity, though the straight groups of chimneys have handsome heads, and the severe character is mitigated on the southern front by an arcade in the middle space of the ground floor. The same stern treatment pervades the garden masonry. No mouldings soften the edges of the terrace steps; parapets and retaining walls, with the exception of the balustrade of the main terrace, are without ornament of light and shade; plainly weathered copings being their only finish. Only here and there, a pier that carries a large Italian flower-pot has a little more ornament of rather massive bracket form. The garden spaces are large and largely treated, as befits the...
3 minute read
There are, alas! but few now remaining of the timber buildings of the sixteenth century that are either so important in size or so well-preserved as this beautiful old Lancashire house. They were built at a time when the country had settled down into a peaceable state; when houses need no longer be walled and loopholed against the probable raids of enemies; when their windows might be of ample size and might look abroad without fear. Many of them, however, were still moated, for a moat was of use not only for defence but as a convenient fish-pond, and as a bar to the depredations of wolves, foxes and rabbits. The advance of civilisation also brought with it a greater desire for home comforts, and the genius of the country, unspoilt, unfettered, undiluted by that mass of half-digested knowledge of many styles that has led astray so many of the...
5 minute read
Those who follow the developments of taste in modern gardening, cannot fail to perceive how great has been the recent increase in the numbers of Roses that are for true beauty in the garden. It is only some of the elders among those who take a true and lively interest in their gardens who know what a scarcity of good things there was thirty years ago, or even twenty, compared with what we have now to choose from. Still, of the Roses commonly known as garden Roses, there were even then China Roses, Damask, Cabbage and Moss, Sweetbriars and Cinnamon Roses, and the free-growing Ayrshires, which are even now among the most indispensable. But the wave of indifferent taste in gardening that had flooded all England with the desire for summer bedding plants, to the almost entire exclusion of the worthier occupants of gardens, had for a time pushed aside...
7 minute read
The gardens that adorn the ancient home of the Sidneys are, as to the actual planting of what we see to-day, with repairs to the house and some necessary additions to fit it for modern needs, the work of the late Lord de L’Isle with the architect George Devey, begun about fifty years ago. It was a time when there was not much good work done in gardening, but both were men of fine taste and ability, and the reparation and alteration needed for the house, and the new planting and partly new designing of the garden could not have been in better hands. The aspect and sentiment of the garden, now that it has grown into shape—its lines closely following, as far as it went, the old design—are in perfect accordance with the whole feeling of the place, so that there seems to be no break in continuity from...
4 minute read
East Sussex is rich in beautiful houses of Tudor times; many precious relics remaining of those days and of the Jacobean reigns, of important manor-house, fine farm building and labourer’s cottage. These were the times when English oak, some of the best of which grew in the Sussex forests, was the main building material. The walls were framed of oak, and the same wood provided beams, joists and rafters, boards for the floors, panelling, doors, window-mullions and furniture. In those days the wood was not cut up with the steam-saw, but was split with the axe and wedge. The carpentry of the roofs was magnificent; there was no sparing of stuff or of labour. Much of it that has not been exposed to the weather, such as these roof-framings, is as sound to-day as when it was put together, with its honest tenons and mortises and fastenings of stout oak...
3 minute read
It was a pleasant thought, that of the lover of good flowers and firm friend of many good people, who first had the idea of combining the two sentiments into a garden of enduring beauty. Such a garden has been made at Easton by the Countess of Warwick. The site of the Friendship Garden has been happily chosen, close to the remains of an ancient house called Stone Hall, which now serves Lady Warwick as a garden-house and library of garden books. The flower-plots are arranged in a series of concentric circles; the plants are the gifts of friends. The name of each plant and that of the giver are recorded on an imperishable majolica plaque. Many well-known givers’ names are here, from that of the very highest in the land downward. The plants themselves comprise many of the best and handsomest. The picture shows the garden as it is...
5 minute read
Those who know the Dean of Rochester, [A] either personally or by reputation, will know that where he dwells there will be a beautiful garden. His fame as a rosarian has gone throughout the length and breadth of Britain, and far beyond, and his practical activity in spreading and fostering a love of Roses must have been the means of gladdening many a heart, and may be reckoned as by no means the least among the many beneficent influences of his long and distinguished ministry. [A] These lines were in print before the lamented death of Dean Hole. A few days’ visit to Dean Hole’s own home at Caunton Manor, near Newark, will ever remain among the writer’s pleasantest memories. It must have been five and twenty years ago, and it was June, the time of Roses. To one whose home was on a poor sandy soil it was almost...
4 minute read
In the very foremost rank among the large houses still remaining that were built in Tudor times is the Warwickshire home of the Marquess of Northampton. The walls are of brick, wide-jointed after the old custom, with quoins, doorways, and window-frames of freestone, wrought into rich and beautiful detail in the heads of the bays and the grand old doorway, whose upper ornament is a large panel bearing the sculptured arms of King Henry VIII. Formerly the house was entirely surrounded by a moat, which approached it closely on all sides but one, where a small garden was inclosed. Now, on the three sides next the building, grass lawns take its place. On all sides but one, hilly ground rises almost immediately; in steep slopes for the most part, beautifully wooded with grand elms. To the north is the small garden still inclosed by the moat. Straight along it is...
3 minute read
The Earl of Mayo’s residence in County Kildare, Ireland, lies a few miles distant from the small market town of Naas. The house is of classical design, built within the nineteenth century. Around it is extensive park-land that is pleasantly undulating, and is well furnished with handsome trees both grouped and standing singly. In the lower level is a large pool with Water-lilies, and natural banks fringed with reeds and the other handsome sub-aquatic vegetation that occurs wild in such places. There was an older house at Palmerstown in former days, whose large walled kitchen garden remains. It is a lengthy parallelogram, divided in the middle into two portions, each nearly a square, by a fine old yew hedge with arches cut in it for the two walks that pass through. The paths are broad, and some width on each side has been planted as a flower border, giving ample...
3 minute read
There is perhaps no place within the British islands so strongly reminiscent of Italy as St. Anne’s, in County Dublin, one of the Irish seats of Lord Ardilaun. This impression is first received from the number and fine growth of the grand Ilexes, which abound by the sides of the approaches and in the park-land near the house. For there are Ilexes in groups, in groves, in avenues—all revelling in the mild Irish air and nearness to the sea. The general impression of the place, as of something in Italy, is further deepened by the house of classical design and of palatial aspect, both within and without, that has that sympathetic sumptuousness that is so charming a character of the best design and ornamentation of the Italian Renaissance. For in general when in England we are palatial, we are somewhat cold, and even forbidding. We stand aloof and endure our...
4 minute read
The mild climate of south-western Scotland is most advantageous for gardening. Hydrangeas and Myrtles flourish, Fuchsias grow into bushes eight to ten feet high. Mr. Oswald’s garden lies upon the river Ayr, a few miles distant from the town of Ayr. The house stands boldly on a crag just above the river, which makes its music below, tumbling over rocky shelves and rippling over shingle-bedded shallows. For nearly a mile the garden follows the river bank, in free fashion as befits the place. Trees are in plenty and of fine growth, both on the garden side and the opposite river shore. Here and there an opening in the trees on the further shore shows the distant country. The garden occupies a large space; the grouping of the shrubs and trees taking a wilder character in the portions furthest away from the house, so that, mingling at last with native growth,...
3 minute read
It is not in large gardens only that hardy flowers are to be seen in perfection. Often the humblest wayside cottage may show such a picture of plant-beauty as will put to shame the best that can be seen at the neighbouring squire’s. And where labouring folk have a liking for clipped yews, their natural good taste and ingenuity often turns them into better forms than are seen among the examples of more pretentious topiary work. The cottager has the undoubted advantage that, as his tree is usually an isolated one, he can see by its natural way of growth the kind of figure it suggests for his clipping; whereas the gardener in the large place usually has to follow a fixed design. So it is that one may see in a cottage garden such a handsome example as the yew in the picture. The lower part of the tree...
8 minute read
How stout and strong and full of well-being they are—the autumn flowers of our English gardens! Hollyhocks, Tritomas, Sunflowers, Phloxes, among many others, and lastly, Michaelmas Daisies. The flowers of the early year are lowly things, though none the less lovable; Primroses, Double Daisies, Anemones, small Irises, and all the beautiful host of small Squill and Snow-Glory and little early Daffodils. Then come the taller Daffodils and Wallflowers, Tulips, and the old garden Peonies and the lovely Tree Peonies. Then the true early summer flowers. If you notice, as the seasons progress, the average of the flowering plants advances in stature. By June this average has risen again, with the Sea Hollies and Flag Irises, the Chinese Peonies and the earlier Roses. And now there are some quite tall things. Mulleins seven and eight feet high, some of them from last year’s seed, but the greater number from the seed-shedding...
4 minute read
At the time the picture was painted, Mynthurst was in the occupation of Mrs. Wilson, to the work of whose niece, Miss Radcliffe, the garden owes much of its charm. It lies in the pleasant district between Reigate and Dorking, on a southward sloping hill-side. The house is a modern one of Tudor character, standing on a terrace that has a retaining wall and steps to a lower level. The garden lies open to the south and south-westerly gales, the prevalent winds of the district, but it is partly sheltered by the walls of the kitchen garden, and by a yew hedge which runs parallel with one of the walls; the space so inclosed making a sheltered place for the rose garden. Here Roses rise in ranks one above the other, and have a delightful and most suitable carpet of Love-in-a-mist. This pretty annual, so welcome in almost any region...
4 minute read
In a picturesque, but little-known district in Queen’s County, Ireland, lies Abbey Leix, the residence of Lord de Vesci. It is a land of vigorous tree-growth and general richness of vegetation. Hedge-rows show an abundance of well-grown ash timber, and the park is full of fine oaks, a thing that is rare in Ireland, and that makes it more like English parkland of the best character. This impression is accentuated in spring-time when the oaks are carpeted with the blue of wild Hyacinths, and when the broad woodland rides are also rivers of the same Blue-bells. In this favoured land the common Laurel is a beautiful tree, thirty feet high; the mildness of the winter climate allowing it to grow unchecked. Only those who have seen it in tree form in the best climates of our islands, or in Southern Europe, know the true nature of the Laurel’s growth, or...
5 minute read
Early in September, when the autumn flowers are at their finest, some of the Starworts are in bloom. Even in August they have already begun, with the beautiful low-growing Aster acris , one of the brightest of flowers of lilac or pale purple colouring. From the time this pretty plant is in bloom to near the end of October, and even later, there is a constant succession of these welcome Michaelmas Daisies. The number of kinds good for garden use is now so great that the growers’ plant lists are only bewildering, and those who do not know their Daisies should see them in some good nursery or private garden and make their own notes. As in the case of Phloxes, the improvement in the garden kinds is of recent years, for I can remember the time when it was a rare thing to see in a garden any other...
6 minute read
Throughout the length and breadth of England it would be hard to find borders of hardy flowers handsomer or in any way better done than those at Arley in Cheshire. The house, an old one, was much enlarged by the late Mr. R. E. Egerton-Warburton, and the making of the gardens, now come to their young maturity, was the happy work of many years of his life. Here we see the spirit of the old Italian gardening, in no way slavishly imitated, but wholesomely assimilated and sanely interpreted to fit the needs of the best kind of English garden of the formal type, as to its general plan and structure. It is easy to see in the picture how happily mated are formality and freedom; the former in the garden’s comfortable walls of living greenery with their own appropriate ornaments, and the latter in the grandly grown borders of hardy...
4 minute read
This is a pretty Midland name for the good garden plant commonly called Red Valerian, or Spur Valerian ( Centranthus ruber ), that groups so well in the picture with the straw-thatched beehives. How the name originated cannot be exactly stated, but may easily be inferred. There are several estates in the Midland Counties belonging to the Coventry family, and, bearing in mind what we know of the home life of our great-great-grandmothers of the late eighteenth century, it may be assumed that some Lady Coventry of that date was specially fond of the pretty needlecraft so widely practised among the ladies of that time. Delightful things they are, these old needlework pictures, with a character quite different from that of their predecessors of Jacobean times. These were much stiffer in treatment and usually had figures; a lady and gentleman and a dog being usual subjects, and trees looking like...