Читать книгу Knole and the Sackvilles - V. Sackville-West - Страница 14

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You come out of the cool shadowy house on to the warm garden, in the summer, and there is a scared flutter of white pigeons up to the roof as you open the door. You have to look twice before you are sure whether they are pigeons or magnolias. The turf is of the most brilliant green; there is a sound of bees in the limes; the heat quivers like watered gauze above the ridge of the lawn. The garden is entirely enclosed by a high wall of rag, very massively built, and which perhaps dates back to the time of the archbishops; its presence, I think, gives a curious sense of seclusion and quiet. Inside the walls are herbaceous borders on either side of long green walks, and little square orchards planted with very old apple-trees, under which grow iris, snapdragon, larkspur, pansies, and such-like humble flowers. There are also interior walls, with rounded archways through which one catches a sight of the house, so that the garden is conveniently divided up into sections without any loss of the homogeneity of the whole. Half of the garden, roughly speaking, is formal; the other half is woodland, called the Wilderness, mostly of beech and chestnut, threaded by mossy paths which in spring are thick with bluebells and daffodils.

Airco Aerials Ltd. KNOLE FROM AN AEROPLANE

The old engravings show the gardens to have been, from the seventeenth century onwards, very much the same as they are at present. There are a few minor variations, but as the early engravers were not very particular as to accuracy their evidence cannot be accepted as wholly reliable. We have, besides these engravings, a fairly large number of records relating to both the park and gardens. The earliest of these that I have been able to trace is dated 1456, to the effect that Archbishop Bourchier in that year enclosed the park—a smaller area then than is covered by it now; and in 1468 there is a bill, “Paid for making 1000 palings for the enclosure of the Knole land, 6s. 8d.” But the first accounts for the garden proper appear to date from the reign of Henry VIII (State papers of Henry VIII), when, in 1543, Sir Richard Longe was paid “for making the King’s garden at Knole.” Then there is a gap of nearly a century, save for the references to the garden in Lady Anne Clifford’s Diary, such as “25th October, 1617. My Lady Lisle and my Coz: Barbara Sidney [came?] and I walked with them all the Wilderness over. They saw the Child and much commended her. I gave them some marmalade of quince, for about this time I made much of it”; and her constant notes of how she took her prayer-book “up to the standing” [which I take to be what we now call the Duchess’ Seat], or of how she picked cherries in the garden with the French page, and he told her how he thought that all the men in the house loved her. For the year 1692, however, there are some bills among the Knole papers, such as “Mr. Olloynes, gardener, wages £12 per annum,” and some bills for seeds and roots, “Sweet yerbs, pawsley, sorrill, spinnig, spruts, leeks, sallet, horse-rydish, jerusalem hawty-chorks,” and another bill for seeds for £2. 0s. 5d. Coming to the eighteenth century, there are more detailed accounts, amongst others an agreement of what was expected in those days of a head gardener and the remuneration he might hope to receive:

14th Aug., 1706. Ric. Baker, Gardener with Lionel Earl of Dorset and Middlesex. To serve his Lordship as Gardener at Knole for the term of one year ½ to begin in March 1706. That he will reserve all the fruit which shall be growing in the garden for his Lordship’s use. That he will at his own charge during the said term preserve all Trees and Greens now in the garden, and will maintain the trees in good husbandlike manner by pruning and trimming, dunging and marling the same in seasonable times, and likewise at his own charge will provide all herbs and other things convenient for my Lord’s kitchen there when in season. He undertakes to maintain at his own charge all such walks as are now in ye said Garden, by mowing, cleaning, and rolling the same, and will preserve all such flowers and plants as are now in the gardens, and that he will be at all the charges of repairing all the glass frames, etc. belonging to the Garden Trade, and will provide for the present use of the Gardens 50 loads of dung.

In return for this service he was to be allowed £30 per annum, and

rooms and conveniences in the house for his business, and to hand all such dung, etc. as shall be made about the house for the use of ye gardens, and that he may have the privilege of disposing [for his own use] all such beans, peas, cabbages, and other kitchen herbs as shall be spared, over and above that what is used in my Lord’s kitchen.

THE GARDEN SIDE (SOUTH FRONT)

	£	s.	d.
April 28, 1718.
Planting trees in new Oak Walk, 5 men, 8 to 18 days each	3	12	4
Planting walnut trees round the Keeper’s lodge, 3 men, 5 days each at 1/2 each per day	0	17	6
Cutting Bows in the yew at end of new Oak Walk	0	2	4
November 11, 1723.
Cutting and levelling new walk in ye Wilderness and making ye mount round ye Oaktree, 8 men, 5 to 11 days each	3	10	0
Alterations made in the Fruit Walks, 16 men, from 14 to 43 days each	23	19	10
Cutting 10,600 turfs at 8d. per 100	3	10	8
Planting ye quarry in the Park	6	7	0
10 May Duke Cherries in ye garden	0	6	8
6 peach and nectarine trees in ye garden	0	12	0
2400 quick-set for ye kitchen garden	0	12	0
1000 holly for ye kitchen garden	0	10	0
Planting 2000 small beeches in ye park	0	18	6
200 Pear stocks	0	6	0
300 Crab stocks	0	3	0
200 Cherry stocks	0	6	0
500 Holly stocks	0	5	0
700 Hazel stocks	1	15	0
For new making the Mulberry garden and sowing ye front walk with seed	14	12	9
20 Gascon Cherry trees	0	10	0
50 bushels sweet apples for cyder	2	10	0
1 bushel Buckwheat for ye Pheasants	0	3	6
10,000 seedling beeches for my Lady Germaine	0	10	0
December 24, 1726.
Getting 80 load of ice and putting it in ye Ice House	1	15	3
June 15, 1728.
Planting 160 Elms in field which was Dr. Lambarde’s next Tonbridge road and sowing the field with furze seed	7	9	3
April, 1730.
1000 Asparagus plants from Gravesend	1	0	0
2 doz. Apricots	0	2	0
300 beeches 8ft. high	1	15	0
250 large beeches planted in ye Park	3	10	0

It is not very clear where such a large number of fruit trees were to be used, but on an engraving of about 1720 I find a wall extending right across the garden to the two stone pillars which, surmounted by carved stone urns, still remain, this wall being planted with fruit trees, so I should think it very probable that this would account for it.

In 1777 new hot-houses and “Pineries” were built, and £175 paid for “two hot-houses full stocked with pine apples and plants.”