In the Western history of gardening, from the 16th to early 19th centuries, a wilderness was a highly artificial and formalized type of woodland, forming a section of a large garden. Though examples varied greatly, a typical English style was a number of geometrically-arranged compartments (often called "quarters") closed round by hedges, each compartment planted inside with relatively small trees. Between the compartments there were wide walkways or "alleys", usually of grass, sometimes of gravel. The wilderness provided shade in hot weather, and relative privacy. Though often said by garden writers at the time to be intended for meditation and reading, the wilderness was much used for walking, and often flirtation. There were few if any flowers, but there might be statues, and some seating, especially in garden rooms or salle vertes ("green rooms"), clearings left empty. Some had other features, such as a garden maze.HEALD, "Wilderness"; Woudstra, 3–11; Eburne and Taylor, 88–89; Clark:1
The wilderness was planted close, but not too close, to the main house, often beyond the parterres, or at an oblique angle to the garden front; garden critics often complained they were too close or too far.For example Batty Langley, quoted in HEALD, "Wilderness", "Citations", and other comments on placing wildernesses If there was a far-reaching view from the house, the wilderness was not supposed to obstruct it,See for example Philip Miller, quoted in HEALD, "Wilderness", "Citations" but if the garden adjoined buildings, obstruction of the view to these might be an advantage. Generally the garden front of the house opened to a terrace followed by an area set out in parterres, often including "plats" of plain grass. Wilderness areas would be beyond or beside this.Hunt, 161–164
The wilderness broadly equates to one type of the French bosquet, and that term was sometimes used in English at the time; the rather vague term "grove" is also often used, for these but sometimes apparently for any group of trees, regardless of their height or formal placing.HEALD, "Wilderness", and also "Grove", "Clump"; Woudstra, 1–6 But the French examples were more likely to plant the trees in a regular pattern, and using the same species. In particular the French bosquet may consist only of trees set out in lines, and not have hedges around the groups of trees; this type is still very common in urban squares in France. The full French formal garden was likely to include bosquets with hedges, which in continental examples were often higher than was usual in England, shown in depictions dwarfing walkers in the garden, as those in the gardens of Versailles still do. The trees were usually deciduous, giving shade in summer, and letting in more light in winter.HEALD, "Wilderness"; Woudstra, 7, 10; Clark:1
The wilderness fell from fashion with the rise in the 18th century of the English landscape garden, and specifically the new form of the shrubbery.Woudstra, 9, 11; Eburne and Taylor, 89 In the 19th century, with the Romantic movement and an increasing number of garden plants new to Europe, a new type of much more natural woodland garden emerged, combining a more or less natural woodland setting with choice specimens of shrubs, flowers and trees.HEALD, "Wilderness" Most wildernesses were turned into these other types of garden, or gradually reverted to woodland as the trees grew.Williamson, 8–9 There have been some reinstatements in recent years, as at Ham House, near London.Eburne and Taylor, 88
Term The English word "wilderness", meaning "wild land" is first recorded in the 13th century, but became well known from the translations into English of the Bible by John Wycliffe in the late 14th century and others, including the Authorized Version ("King James Bible" to Americans) of the early 17th century. In Biblical contexts it referred to the arid "treeless wasteland" covering much of the Holy Land,Nash, 2–3 and even with the limited awareness of Middle Eastern geography of most English people, the term was probably understood along these lines.Woudstra, 3; Jacques, 72 disputes this, emphasizing the sense of a place where one is alone. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755) it is defined as: "a desert; a tract of solitude and savageness" (supported by quotations from poets that do not entirely reflect this definition). The garden sense is not covered,"Wilderness" in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary online; Nash, 3. though it must have been known to Johnson.
However the deeper history of words related to "wild" in northern European languages suggests that older connections to heavily-forested land may have lingered in English consciousness. Otherwise the garden meaning of the term is rather perverse, as the garden wilderness is anything but truly "wild".Nash, 1–2; Woudstra, 3 Regardless of climate and vegetation, the biblical references establish the wilderness as a place of solitude, away from crowds, and this was an important part of the garden meaning.Jacques, 72
An early use of "wilderness" for a bosquet is the description by surveyors of that made for Queen Henrietta Maria at Wimbledon House in the 1640s. Though "wilderness" was the most usual English term for the formal garden areas described here, a number of other terms might be used, especially for areas whose layout placed them on the edges of the definition above. These included grove, bosquet, clump, shrubbery, boscage, thicket, plantation, wood, coppice, and copse, most generally suggesting a less formal arrangement.Woudstra, 3; HEALD has pages on several of these terms
The French bosquet adapted its name from the Italian boschetto ("little wood") or just bosco ("wood").Clark:1; Woudstra, 3
History
Writing of the similar areas in Italian gardens, Edith Wharton wrote that "the ilex or laurel walks beyond were clipped into shape to effect a transition between the straight lines of masonry and the untrimmed growth of the woodland to which they led, and that each step away from architecture was a nearer approach to nature."In Italian Villas and their Gardens (1904). Quoted in: Williams, Bunny and Drew, Nancy, On Garden Style, 43, 1998 (1st edn), Simon & Schuster, , google books The first English wilderness, now lost, may have been that added in the 1540s to Nonsuch Palace near London, while John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley was its "custodian". Lumley had travelled to Italy, and was a great art collector. According to a visitor this included a great variety of species, many producing fruit or nuts, and also a number of caged exotic animals,Woudstra, 3 a medieval touch not often seen later, except for aviaries. Blickling Hall had one from the 1620s, later replaced by a different one in the 18th century.Eburne and Taylor, 88–89; Woudstra, 3; Clark:2
The main period for creating wildernesses was about "1690–1750, probably peaking around 1735–1740",Clark:1 although Jan Kip's earlier aerial perspective prints suggest that the greatest houses had them by 1710 or before.Woudsta, 7 Distinct features of the early English wilderness seem to have been that many, up to about 1720, were walled gardens separated from the rest of the garden, the walls often used for training fruit, and that there were also many with fruit trees inside the quarters; these observations come from images and do not reflect the leading gardening books of the period.
Designs varied with the site, but the most common is what is now called the "Union Jack" style, in French an étoile ("star"), with alleys at regular angles intersecting at a central point.Oxford, 180
The relatively well-documented decision before 1718 not to turn Ray or Wray Wood at Castle Howard into a formal wilderness, as had been proposed by George London, is taken by garden historians as a significant point, "decisive for the development of the 'natural' style of English landscape". This was a natural wood, to the side of the main axis of the garden of the newly-built house, which was instead "turned into a labyrinth of tangled paths, enlivened by various fountains", but at least initially, little special planting. Stephen Switzer, an advocate of ornamental woodland, may have been involved with the new design.Oxford, 98-99, 99 quoted; Batey and Lambert, 127-128. Wray Wood is not shown in the illustration of Castle Howard here.
The start of the conversion of the wilderness into the shrubbery (a word first recorded in 1748) can be seen by comparing the books of Richard Bradley, whose New Improvements of Planting and Gardening of 1719 recommended yew as "of great use for Hedges, and make most agreeable Divisions in Gardens; it is customary to fence in the Quarters of Wilderness Works with these Plants, where they have a very good Effect. .", whereas by 1754 Philip Miller in The Gardeners Dictionary, though accepting of the old style, preferred edging the "quarters" or compartments with graduated shrubs and flowers:HEALD, "Wilderness", with quotation from Miller By this Distribution you will have the Pleasure of the flowering Shrubs near the Sight, whereby you will be regaled with their Scent, as you pass through the Walks; which is seldom observed by those who plant Wildernesses; for nothing is more common than to see Roses, Honeysuckles, and other small flowering Shrubs, placed in the Middle of large Quarters, under the Dropping and Shade of large Trees, where they seldom thrive.... there should be some smaller Serpentine-walks through the Middle of the Quarters, where Persons may retire for Privacy. . . By the sides of these private Walks may also be scattered some Wood-flowers and Plants, which, if artfully planted, will have a very good Effect."
The well-documented Wilderness at Hampton Court Palace, the leading English royal garden between Henry VIII and Queen Anne, is indicative of the rise and fall of the wilderness. On the north side of the palace, what had been "The King's New Orchard", planted in 1531 by Henry VIII, was replanted as a wilderness under Charles II in the 1680s. This included four mazes, the largest of which is the only remaining part of the wilderness. In Daniel Defoe's Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–27) it received much praise, described as "cast into a Wilderness with a Labyrinth and Espaliers … not only well designed and completely finished but is perfectly well kept and the Espaliers fill’d exactly, at the bottom to the very Ground, and are led up to proportion’d Heights on the Top; so that nothing of that kind can be more beautiful". But when a revised posthumous edition was published in 1742, Samuel Richardson, the new editor, commented that "to every Person of Taste it must be very far from affording any Pleasure, since nothing can be more disagreeable than to be immured between Hedges, so as to have the Eye confined to a straight Walk, and the Beauty of the Trees growing in the Quarters, intirely secluded from the eye". The whole design remained largely intact until the 1850s, mainly because Hampton Court ceased to be lived in by the royal family; now the area is mostly cleared, with grass and a large display of bulbs in spring. But the largest maze, now replanted, was very popular with the public, and kept."The Winding History of the Wilderness Garden at Hampton Court Palace", Historic Royal Palaces; Jacques, 293
Already by 1712 the wilderness at Rendcomb House in Gloucestershire, as etched by Kip, was laid out with irregular curving walks, except for the main straight and wide walk aligned to the house. This may have been because of its steeply sloping site, and because it was formed from an existing wood by the subtractive method.Jacques, 202 St Paul's Walden Bury, laid out in the 1730s, is a rather late garden with straight walks in the old style, and the "most perfect surviving" English example.Uglow, 118