At first sight you might not think that there is much of a connection between gardens and Freemasonry. Masonic symbolism is surely all about architecture, and gardening is about working with things that grow. Nevertheless there is a connection, in fact many connections, and if this seems far-fetched it may be because we need to widen our conception of both gardening and what a ‘masonic garden’ might be.
    A garden, like a building, can convey a deliberate message. If, for example, you visit Chartres Cathedral, you experience not just a construction of stone and mortar but a kind of ‘book’ in which you can read the world view and beliefs of the medieval Christian mind. Similarly to visit, say, the gardens of the Alhambra or the Generalife at Granada in Spain is to catch a glimpse of the Islamic world view, in which gardens are intended to give a foretaste of paradise. In fact, the very word ‘paradise’ comes from an old Persian word meaning a walled garden. The thought expressed in the saying ‘nearer to God in a garden’ has a long history.
    The idea of the garden as an image of paradise is one that goes back some 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia being mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This was largely an arid region, where people longed for green shady places with plenty of water. It was natural to think of the gods and the privileged human beings who had become immortal as dwelling in a garden. This idea mingled with the notion of a primal garden, the Garden of Eden, in which there were four rivers, which flowed out into the wider world from a central source: ‘Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads,’ states Genesis.
    In the Koran these become rivers of water, wine, milk and honey, and this is reflected in the typical design of Islamic gardens with four water channels. In the centre, where the channels meet, there is often a fountain representing the primal source of the four rivers. In the Islamic garden these elements are part of a whole symbolic pattern in which plants, buildings and other garden features all have their special significance.
    The paradise garden tradition also has its echoes outside the Islamic world. One of the features of paradise according to the ancient writings is a sacred mound or hill, which stood in the centre and was sometimes combined with a fountain or spring. At one time paradise mounds were a popular garden feature, and a few of them survive. Examples in England include those at Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Packwood House in Warwickshire and New College, Oxford.
    Apart from the paradise garden tradition we can find many examples in different cultures of the use of gardens to convey a symbolic message. These include the gardens of China with their immortal rocks and careful balancing of earth energies, the serene Zen gardens of Japan, the gardens of Renaissance Italy with their rich mythological imagery, even the landscaped parks of England such as Stourhead, which symbolically reproduces the journey of Virgil’s hero, Aeneas, around the Mediterranean. There are also quite a number of striking modern examples such as the remarkable Tarot Garden in Tuscany, created by the French sculptress Niki de Saint Phalle featuring enormous figures representing the Tarot trumps, some of them as large as a house.

A visual language

While a garden can be made to contain infinite number of different messages, the visual ‘language’ used convey them has basically three different elements. First there is the overall form of the garden, the shape of the perimeter and the internal divisions, the compass alignments, the degree of symmetry or asymmetry. Secondly, there are the natural or man-made features: mounds, water channels, fountains, labyrinths, statues, monuments. Third, there are the plants with their symbolic associations.
    A plant has many different meanings and associations depending on the region and cultural context. In the west we can think, for example, of the laurel, sacred to Apollo and symbolising glory and poetic inspiration, the oak, sacred to Jupiter, the ivy and the vine, sacred to Bacchus, and of course the acacia, with its well-known symbolic associations in Freemasonry.
    Considering that gardens have been used for so long to convey symbolic messages of one kind or another, it is natural to wonder if they have they ever been used to convey a masonic message, as the architectural historian James Stevens Curl argues in his book The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry. We would expect the ‘masonic garden’ to be filled with features that point to masonic ideas, creating what I have described as a ‘symbol-strewn landscape’. A landowner wishing to create such a landscape could turn to the pictures often found on masonic diplomas and aprons as well as in books on Freemasonry. Many of these depict landscapes full of things alluding to masonic tradition: ruined classical temples, pyramids, obelisks, broken columns as well as symbolic creatures such as lions, sphinxes and snakes.

Symbolic gardens

One place reminiscent of such a landscape is the Parc de Monceau in Paris, with its Roman colonnade, pyramid, stone archway, obelisk and other romantic follies. The park was originally laid out in the 18th century for the Duc de Chartres, a leading Freemason of the time, so it is tempting to see a masonic influence in its design. The same is true of another French 18th-century park, the Désert de Retz, near Marly, created by François de Monville, also a Freemason. The park featured, among other things, a grotto guarded by torch-bearing satyrs, a pyramid that served as an ice-house, and a house shaped like a gigantic broken column of the Tuscan order, in which de Monville himself lived. Several of the features found in one or other of these parks, such as the pyramid, the obelisk and the broken column, also appear in the early painted Master’s aprons.
    Turning to Italy, we can detect masonic influences in the Torrigiani garden in Florence, created in the early nineteenth century by the architect Luigi Cambray Digny for the Marquess Pietro Torrigiani; both were members of the same Florentine masonic lodge. The original features of the garden, most of which have now vanished, included a statue of Osiris at the entrance, a Gothic basilica, a sepulchre, a huge statue of Saturn and a Gothic tower built on a high point of the garden.

The initiating journey

Common to the gardens just mentioned is that they are laid out so as to create an initiatory journey, a theme that features in Craft Masonry and in a number of the higher degrees, sometimes involving symbolic dangers and tests of endurance.
    The motif of the initiatory journey is particularly striking in certain German gardens, notably the park of Wörlitz in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, built around a salient of the river Elbe in the latter part of the eighteenth century by Prince Franz von Anhalt-Dessau and his architect. This park includes a Hermitage, a Mystagogue’s Cell, a Temple of Venus, a series of grottoes corresponding to the elements, and a labyrinth with tunnels through rock, twisting paths, false turnings and inscriptions containing advice to the wanderer. In this park we feel close to the world of Mozart’s Magic Flute, with its message of spiritual quest, its themes of darkness and light and its elemental initiations.
    Although it is not recorded whether the Prince was a Freemason (he visited England and could have been initiated there), he was in contact with a number of prominent Masons including the poet Goethe, whom he visited at Weimar. Indeed, the park at Weimar, laid out along the banks of the river Ilm, was strongly influenced by Wörlitz. Goethe played an important part in the laying out of the park, and here again we find elements that suggest a masonic influence, such as a grotto with a sphinx, and a stone pillar encircled by a snake.
    Even more striking in its imagery, is the New Garden at Potsdam. This was created for King Frederick William II of Prussia (reigned 1786-97), who had a strong interest in esoteric matters and belonged to the Golden and Rosy Cross Order, an exotic, high-degree masonic rite with a strong emphasis on alchemy. Charmingly laid out on the banks of a lake, the garden contains a number of objects redolent of Rosicrucian mysteries. Near the entrance is an orangery resembling an Egyptian temple, with a sphinx over the portico and two Egyptian gods in black marble guarding the doorway. Equally imposing is an ice-house (reminiscent of the one at Retz) in the form of a pyramid with a row of gilded alchemical sigils over the entrance. Other features have unfortunately disappeared, including a grotto and a hermitage with a ceiling painted with planetary images.
    Further examples of masonic gardens include that of Schloss Louisenlund in Schleswig-Holstein, home of the Landgrave Carl von Hesse-Cassel (1744-1836), a leading Freemason, active in various high-degree rites and an ardent devotee of alchemy, who harboured the mysterious French alchemist, the Comte de Saint-Germain during the last year’s of the latter’s life. The park at Louisenlund contained an Alchemical Tower, a Grotto of Initiation and other features, now mostly vanished. In its heyday it must have been a place of potent magic.
    These few examples should give an idea of what we might understand as a masonic garden or - more broadly speaking - a garden with a symbolic message. Such gardens are still being created, as the Tarot Garden shows. While not many people today have the resources available to the King of Prussia or other continental aristocrats, we can still draw inspiration from their visionary creations.

Dr. Christopher McIntosh gained a doctorate in history from Oxford University and is the author of many books including two studies of the Rosicrucian movement and, most recently, Gardens of the Gods (I.B.Tauris, London) reviewed in the last issue of Freemasonry Today. He has been a Freemason for over twenty years and since 1994, has lived in northern Germany where he enjoys contacts with a number of lodges.