Britain is famed throughout the world for its green lawns. There is scarcely a garden in the British Isles that has not got a lawn of some size or other. But it was not always thus. Historians have written about the lawns which appeared in Persian, Greek and Roman gardens before the birth of Christ, but they haven't written much, and the evidence for their existence is extremely scanty. The first detailed picture we have of the early lawn is drawn from continental manuscripts produced between 1300 and 1500.
But how were these lawns made? One book tells us that the site was cleared of all weeds and roots and the ground was sterilized with boiling water, and then turves cut from good grassland were tamped down on the levelled earth. Not a far cry from one of the methods used today. And how did they look? Once again we must rely on reports that were written at the time. It seems that the lawn of that age was not composed of grass alone. It was a "flowery mead" studded with pinks, periwinkles, primroses and many other low-growing plants (a pretty good description of many lawns of today).
You must remember that all the information about the lawns of this period is derived from continental sources. There are no detailed British records. We do know that the troubled Middle Ages were times for fighting and not gardening in this country. Men were too busy killing one another to worry about making lawns, and so it seems certain that our early green swards were pale imitations of the elegant expanses in Italy and France.
It was inside the castle walls that the English lawn began. There was an area of grass on which the knights and their ladies could walk and sit well away from the smells and vermin of indoor living. There were turf-topped seats and also rectangular 'greens' on which games such as bowls and pell-mell (or paille-maille) were played. Even from the very beginning there seems to have been a division between the ornamental lawn and sports turf on which games could be played. Apart from the castle, the gardens within the cloisters of the monasteries can also be considered to be an ancestor of the lawn as we know it today.
It was not until Tudor and Elizabethan times that the garden became a place to be adorned and admired. Around the vast mansions and palaces of the day spread long grassy pathways between the flower beds. Large grassy areas were created for bowls and other games, and grass-covered mounds were made from which people could gaze down on the splendour of England's new wealth. The lawns were not always composed of grass, however. The Chamomile lawn was obviously popular; books gave cultural instructions on the construction of such a lawn, and noted that "the more it is trodden the faster it grows". It has been suggested that Plymouth Hoe, the place where Drake is supposed to have bowled whilst the Spanish Armada waited, was a chamomile lawn. But the garden lawn had come into being, even if it was little better than its counterparts across the Channel.
And then, in about 1610, the revolution began - the start of the Jacobean age of gardening. A feature appeared which was to arouse the envy of gardeners everywhere - the closely-cut British lawn. No one person could have created this concept, but Francis Bacon is usually regarded as its High Priest. "The green hath two pleasures, the one because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass finely shorn, the other because it will give you a fair alley in the midst". Guides to lawn-making appeared in many books, and one of the most famous (one could almost say most notorious) is the Gervase Markham translation of 'La Maison Rustique'. This book gave a very sound set of instructions for manufacturing a lawn, except for 'the turves should be placed grass downwards on the earth'. A lot of people commented on this 'unusual' technique, but everybody seems to have missed the obvious: it was either a mistranslation or a misprint!
By the end of the Jacobean period the English lawn was renowned throughout the civilised world. In fact, one of France's greatest established horticultural authors, wrote at the beginning of the l8th. century, "The grass plots (of England) are so exquisite in beauty, that in France we can scarce ever hope to come up to it."
But gardening fashions change, and the beginning of the l8th century saw the start of the landscape garden. The age of 'Le jardin Anglais' and Capability Brown had begun. Whole estates were given over to grass, trees and water, and the regular scything and rolling of vast acreages took place all over Britain. But the Industrial Revolution and the onset of the Victorian Age caused the mushrooming of countless small villa gardens, and the face of gardening in the early 19th century changed. Gardens were small, and flower beds were the in thing. The lawn decreased in size. The working man had no time for scything, which meant that the lawn could have no place around the homes of ordinary people. And then, in the year 1830, came Edwin Budding. And who, you might ask, is Edwin Budding? All will be revealed in the next instalment of Garden Gossip.
Happy gardening.
Bill Hutchings
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