Because of its comparatively slow rate of growth the yew has been the subject usually employed by topiarists, while box is a good second in point of popularity. Both these trees or shrubs have the additional merit of longevity. Wordsworth points out both the slow growth and longevity of the yew in his lines:—
“There is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Which to this day stands single, in the midst Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore, Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched To Scotland’s heaths; or those that crossed the sea And drew their sounding bows at Azincour, Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers. Of vast circumference and gloom profound This solitary tree!—a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.”
PEACOCKS, TABLES, SPIRALS AND BOATS IN YEW AND BOX AT J. CHEAL AND SONS, CRAWLEY ]
Heslington, near York, still boasts an ancient Topiary garden, where all the clipped trees are of yew. This, as well as the clipped hedges of Rockingham, and the hedges and clipped trees at Erbistock, date, according to the Hon. Alicia Amherst, from about 1560. Other trees and shrubs were also used by the tonsile artists, and even Rosemary was not omitted. Barnaby Googe (about 1578) observed that the women folk planted it and trimmed it into shapes “as in the fashion of a cart, a peacock, or such things as they fancy.”
William Harrison, Rector of Radwinter, and Canon of Windsor, who wrote “A Description of England” contained in “Holinshed’s Chronicles,” has already been referred to. He was a most observant man and one who in his own picturesque language “had an especiall eye unto the truth of things”; from 1586 to 1593 he was Canon of Windsor, and therefore anything he has to say about gardens is of unusual interest. His keen patriotism shines brightly through all his writings, and his high opinion of his own land is not in any way reduced when he comes to discourse upon gardens, for he writes: “I am persuaded that, albeit the gardens of the Hesperides were in times past so greatly accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were possible to have such an equal judge as by certain knowledge of both were able to pronounce upon them, I doubt not but he would give the prize unto the gardens of our days, and generally over all Europe, in comparison of those times wherein the old exceeded.”