The gardens were bounded by walls constructed of clay or mud and usually thatched at the top. Fruit-trees were common in these gardens, and the orchard about the Guild buildings was noted for its plums and apples. When the mulberry-tree was first introduced into England, Shakespeare bought one and set it out in his grounds at New Place, where it grew to great size. It survived for nearly a century and a half after the death of the poet, but in 1758 was cut down by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who had bought the estate in 1756. There was little of what we should regard as comfort in those picturesque old English houses, with their great black beams chequering the outer walls into squares and triangles, their small many-paned windows, their low ceilings and rude interior wood-work, their poor and scanty furnishings. Chimneys had but just come into general use in England, and, though John Shakespeare's house had one, the dwellings of many of his neighbors were still unprovided with them. In 1582, when William was eighteen years old, an order was passed by the town council that "Walter Hill, dwelling in Rother Market, and all the other inhabitants of the borough, shall, before St. James's Day, 30th April, make sufficient chimneys," under pain of a fine of ten shillings. This was intended as a precaution against fires, the frequent occurrence of which in former years had been mainly due to the absence of chimneys. William Harrison, in 1577, referring to things in England that had been "marvellously changed within the memory of old people," includes among these "the multitude of chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young days there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor places of their lords always excepted), but each one made his fire against a reredos[1] in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat." In another chapter Harrison says: "Now have we many chimneys; and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses. Then had we none but reredosses; and our heads did never ache. For as the smoke in those days was supposed to be a sufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was reported a far better medicine to keep the goodman and his family from the quack or pose, wherewith, as then, very few were acquainted." THE HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE. Of the furniture in these old houses we get an idea from inventories of the period that have come down to us. We have, for instance, such a list of the household equipment of Richard Arden, Shakespeare's maternal grandfather, who was a wealthy farmer; and another of such property belonging to Henry Field, tanner, a neighbor of John Shakespeare, who was his chief executor.