English garden design from the Elizabethan era onwards. Around the time he worked on Athelhampton, he undertook a series of study tours across Britain and continental Europe in which he produced illustrations of landscapes, gardens and architecture some of which were used in the 1892 book The Formal Garden in England. At Athelhampton, he drew these influences together in a way that he later described in a 1900 article, in which he argued that the three chief characteristics of old gardens were enclosure, subdivision, and change of level: "As you have the dining room, library and gallery, so out of doors there was one court for guests to alight in, another for flowers and a third for the lawn game of the period." This vision is apparent to modern visitor walking up the main drive: ahead of them is an area in front of the house with a vast Magnolia grandiflora and a Banksian rose, which is "the court for guests to arrive in;" to their right is the circular Coruna garden which is both a space "for flowers" and an access to further such spaces; while to their left is the West Lawn, perfect for games such as croquet. In a speech to the Art Workers Guild in 1896, published in the Gardener's Magazine and the Journal of the Society of Arts as The Garden in Relation to the House, Thomas explained how the Coruna, an intimate circular space enclosed by a stone wall topped with obelisks and with four gateways to adjacent 'outdoor rooms,' formed the point of intersection of two of the principal axes of his design. A visitor today standing in the Coruna can see the vistas created by these axes: the first running roughly north-south and linking the Great Court with its 12 giant yew pyramids to the Private Garden with its rectangular pond; the second running east-west and linking what is now the Mediterranean Garden with the arrival 'court' in front of the house. Thomas defined a third axis, running parallel to the second along the middle of the rectangular lily pond and meeting the house at the centre of its East facade (which Lafontaine had made symmetric by adding an extra tower). All these axes were parallel to one or other of the main frontages of the house, and this, together with the series of enclosed spaces, served to draw the garden and