The Romans also adapted Egyptian-style gardening, which spread throughout the Roman Empire. The first to make gardens in Britain were Romans and apparently the earliest monastery gardens were made in a simple, utilitarian but similar Roman style. Simple castle gardens, when there were any, followed the medieval monastic style as did the significantly more ample gardens of the Tudor monarchs.
Slowly but surely, new ideas and variations in architecture and art were picked up and adapted by the Italians from Roman designs and developed into a distinct and at times grandiose style of garden design. Beginning in the 14th century, this fashion moved steadily east and westward from Italy and by the 17th century had spread throughout most of Europe. The French and Dutch followed these trends with variations of their own and the most notable were, of course, for royalty. The most prominent French garden of the time was Versailles, fashioned by Andre Le Notre, gardener to Louis XIV. It followed that every European monarch of any self-importance had to have his or her own Versailles although admittedly in a reduced fashion.
The Dutch, like many others, imitated the French. However, in the course of copying their ideas, a distinctly Dutch style of cozy and elaborate gardens with canals for drainage emerged. The recently refurbished Het Loo Palace and Gardens, originally fashioned toward the end the 17th century for the Stadtholder-King William III and Queen Mary II in the woodlands of Apeldoorn, as well as many of the smaller Dutch gardens in and around Amsterdam, show these fashions.
Design of the formal English gardens "borrowed" from the French and Dutch, with French designers working in England and English designers visiting France. The ascendancy of the Dutch William III and his English Queen Mary II in 1689, after their invitation to rule England, brought Dutch garden fashions to England full-force.
Hampton Court, although often identified with Henry VIII, was influenced just as much if not more by William and Mary. Although Mary never lived to see or make use of it, the recently restored Royal Privy Garden is a superior example of an English Dutch garden. The English National Trust also maintains a Dutch-style English garden at Westbury Court.
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