Liking the "sunlight, rain and evensong" emulation/timeline, we will stay with it for a while.
Christian sees:
a formal garden;
gravel paths;
low hedges;
geometric rose and lily beds;
goldfish in a stone basin;
lichen on the basin;
ivy on brick walls;
a lawn beyond a wrought-iron gate;
a white, slate-roofed house;
a yew tree.
He feels a mild, fragrant breeze, hears bees and birds and is greeted by Laurinda. They are on an estate in Surrey, England, in the mid-eighteenth century. London-dwelling owners have lent the estate to the eccentric Miss Ashcroft.
There will be more later.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Formal English gardens? Was this during the time of "Capability" Brown, who designed or laid out many of those gardens?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
His dates fit.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I thought so. I remember "Capability" Brown because of his habit of saying of designs he liked "It has capability."
Ad astra! Sean
Brown's gardens were the successors to the formal type, strictly speaking -- and a reaction against them. They were meant to be "natural", in a much-improved sense, with long stretches of lawn, ha-has disguising barrier ditches, copses of woods, ponds, artificial ruins, etc. The Victorian combination of formal elements (flowerbeds, hedges, walks) with "improved natural" (sweeping vistas, groves, lawns, lakes) were in turn reaction against over-strict Brown-ism, which often had grass running straight up to the house.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
IOW, every generation or century had its own tastes in gardens: from rigidly geometric designs to the "naturalism" of Brown.
Ad astra! Sean
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