27 JULY 1956, Page 27

The Formal Garden

MR. DAVID GREEN has written a fascinating Recount of the life and times of Henry Wise: G. ardener to Queen Anne (0.U.P., 70$.) has l.„lisf the right amount of personal history and descriptions of contemporary houses, people, tastes and customs. Wise and George London ,Were partners, and apart from designing many iambus gardens they ran the celebrated nur- series in Brompton Park, where they had areas of carefully tended plants with which they shuPplied the vast gardens of Chatsworth, Longleat, Melbourne and, of course, he royal palaces. Queen Anne took a great interest in the designing of her gardens, but the arrival of George I with his dislike of almost everything English was a serious blow to Wise. After many vicissitudes under the ,new reign, Wise retired at the age of seventy- niur to Warwick Priory, where he redesigned Ills own garden, the plan of which is included arnongst several other prints and photographs at the end of the book. Mr. Green says, 'In garden design, then, Wise belongs to the zenith and to the sunset of the formal garden rather than to the dawn of the informal or !yen to the brief afterglow of the transition. e Notre died in 1700, Queen Anne and George London in 1714 and the Sun King himself in the following year. To Wise, the Hanoverian dawn may well have resembled a permanent ,ecliPse. Thenceforth, in architecture it was to ce back to Palladio. and in gardening, para- doxically back to nature.' This is a nicely bound book with a charming cover by Felix kelly and is altogether beautifully printed