St. John’s Lodge has also a well-thought-out garden, some of it of a distinctly formal type. The coloured illustration of it is taken from a part of the garden enclosed with cut privet hedges, with a fountain in the centre, on which stands a statue of St. John the Baptist, by Mr. Johnes. Between the four wide grass walks there are masses of herbaceous plants, backed by rhododendrons, which, as the picture shows, stand out with brilliant colour in summer against the green background. This garden opens into a bowling-green enclosed by cut lime trees, and a cool walk for summer shaded by pleached lime trees. A seductive broad walk bordered with fruit-trees is another feature. This attractive garden has been made within the last eighteen years. The conception of it was due to Lord Bute, and the designing and carrying out to Mr. Schultz. The other side of the house, with a wide terrace and park stretching down toward the water, has no special horticultural feature, but the formal garden is full of charm, and the plants are thriving and trees growing up so fast there is no trace of its newness. It only shows how much can be done where knowledge and good taste are displayed. St. James’s Park is still skirted by garden walls--Stafford, Clarence, and Marlborough Houses, as well as St. James’s Palace, though their gardens are hardly as elaborate as those of former years. The garden of that Palace delighted the Sieur de la Serre, who accompanied Marie de Medicis when she came to pay a visit to Henrietta Maria and Charles I. and was lodged in St. James’s Palace. After describing the house, “there were, besides,” he writes, “two grand gardens with parterres of different figures, bordered on every side by a hedge of box, carefully cultivated by the hands of a skilful gardener; and in order to render the walks on both sides which enclosed it appear more agreeable, all sorts of fine flowers were sowed.... The other garden, which was adjoining and of the same extent, had divers walks, some sanded and others grass, but both bordered on each side by an infinity of fruit-trees, which rendered walking so agreeable that one could never be tired.” [Illustration: IN THE GARDEN, ST. JOHN’S LODGE] The garden of Bridgewater House was a little slice taken off Green Park. On the advice of Fordyce, the Crown in 1795 granted a lease, on certain conditions, to the Duke of Bridgewater and other proprietors near their respective houses, on the ground that it would improve rather than injure the Park. In 1850 the question arose whether the plans Barry had just made for the garden of Bridgewater House infringed the terms of the lease, and Pennethorne, architect to the Office of Works, had to report on the question. It being finally settled that the proposed wall and terrace would not hurt the Park, the alterations were allowed.