569. During Queen Anne's reign (1702 to 1714), the principal alteration mentioned by Daines Barrington, as having taken place in the royal gardens, was that of covering the parterre before the great terrace at Windsor with turf. Switzer mentions that her majesty finished the old gardens at Kensington, begun by King William. Wise, who was employed for this purpose, turned the gravel-pits into a shrubbery, with winding walks, with which Addison was so struck, that he compares him to an epic poet, and these improved pits as episodes to the general effect of the garden. London and Wise were nurserymen, and the designers of gardens, in which last capacity they were nearly in as great demand as was afterwards the celebrated Brown. To London and Wise, as designers, succeeded Bridgeman, who appears to have been a more chaste artist than any of his predecessors. He banished vegetable sculpture, and introduced wild scenes and cultivated fields in Richmond Park; but he still clipped his alleys, though he left to their natural growth the central parts of the masses through which they were pierced. Blenheim, Castle Howard, Cranbourne, Bushy Park, Edger, Althorp, New Park, Bowden, Hackwood, Wrest, and indeed almost all the principal noblemen's seats in the ancient style, were laid out during this, the preceding, and part of the latter reigns, or between the years 1660 and 1713. Blenheim was laid out by Wise in three years; Wanstead, in Essex, and Edger in Hertfordshire, were the last of London's designs. (Switzer.)
