25 JULY 1925, Page 20

A HA HA [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] .

should be very grateful if either you or any of yours readers could give me some information concerning " a ha-ha " or ha-ha fence so beloved by A. Trollope and other Victorian' novelists. - I. have consulted encyclopaedias and even timidly approached the gardeners at Kew (imagining it to be some. sort of tree or shrub) but with no result.

D. W. WELLSAIAN,, Purleigh, Ridger'iew Road, Whetstone, N.20.

[A ha-ha or haw-haw is a blind fence or ditch often found near houses from which a hedge would obscure the view. The doubtful origin of the word, from an exclamation cf surprise, is given in the New English Dictionary.—En. Spectator.]