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Ha-ha

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Not to be confused with laughter.
For other uses, see Haha.
Cross section of a ha-ha; the primary view is from the right.

The Ha-ha is an expression in garden design that refers to a trench, in which is a fence concealed from view. Alternatively it can be used to mean a ditch the one side of which is vertical and faced with stone, the other face sloped and turfed, making the trench, in effect, or retaining wall (this is also sometimes known as a deer leap). The ha-ha is designed not to interrupt the view from a garden, pleasure-ground, or park, while maintaining a physical barrier at least in one direction.[1]

Origins

The ha-ha consorted well with Chinese gardening ideas of concealing barriers with nature, but its European origins are earlier than the European discovery of Chinese gardening.[2] The ha-ha is a feature in the landscape gardens laid out by Charles Bridgeman, the originator of the ha-ha, according to Horace Walpole (Walpole 1780), and by William Kent and was an essential component of the "swept" views of Capability Brown.

"The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonized with the lawn within; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without. "[3]

Walpole was unaware that the technical innovation had been presented in Dezallier d'Argenville's La theorie et la pratique du jardinage (1709), which had been translated into English by the architect John James (1712): Sunken ditches were also features of deer parks in England from Norman times onwards. For example, between Dover and Canterbury there is a farm, Parkside Farm, which takes its name from a deer park established by Bishop Odo, the brother of William the Conqueror, where remnants of the ditch still survive.

"Grills of iron are very necessary ornaments in the lines of walks, to extend the view, and to show the country to advantage. At present we frequently make thoroughviews, called Ah, Ah, which are openings in the walls, without grills, to the very level of the walks, with a large and deep ditch at the foot of them, lined on both sides to sustain the earth, and prevent the getting over; which surprises the eye upon coming near it, and makes one laugh, Ha! Ha! from where it takes its name. This sort of opening is haha, on some occasions, to be preferred, for that it does not at all interrupt the prospect, as the bars of a grill do."

Walpole surmised that the name is derived from the response of ordinary folk on encountering them and that they were, "...then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them Ha! Has! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk."

During his excavations at Iona in the period 1964 - 1974, Richard Reece discovered an 18th-century ha-ha, built to protect the abbey from cattle; purely functional, rather than part of landscape design.[4]

Examples

Most typically ha-has are still found in the grounds of grand country houses and estates and act as a means of keeping the cattle and sheep in the pastures and out of the formal gardens, without the need for obtrusive fencing. They vary in depth from about 2 feet (Horton House) to 9 feet (Petworth).

An unusually long example is the Ha-Ha separating the Royal Artillery Barrack Field from Woolwich Common in South-East London. This deep Ha-Ha was installed in or about 1774 to prevent sheep and cattle, grazing on Woolwich Common as a stopover on their journey to the London meat markets, wandering onto the Royal Artillery gunnery range. A rare feature of this East-West Ha-Ha is that the normally hidden brick wall emerges above ground for its final 70 or so meters as the land falls away to the West, revealing a very fine batter to the brickwork face of the so exposed wall - this final West section of the Ha-Ha forms the boundary of the Gatehouse [1] by James Wyatt RA. The Royal Artillery Ha-Ha is maintained in a very good state of preservation by the Ministry of Defence, it is a Listed Building, and is accompanied by Ha-Ha Road that runs alongside its full length. There is a shorter Ha-Ha in the grounds of the nearby Jacobean Charlton House and, perhaps suggesting that the art of Ha-Haing is not entirely lost, there is an example of a Ha Ha type wall nearby Severndroog Castle in Oxleas Wood, constructed with what seems to be World War II bomb damage brickwork.

Ha-has were also used at Victorian Era lunatic asylums such as Yarra Bend Asylum and Kew Lunatic Asylum in Australia. From the inside, the walls presented a tall face to patients, preventing them from escaping, while from outside the walls looked low so as not to suggest imprisonment.[5] Kew Asylum has been redeveloped as apartments however some of the ha-has remain, albeit partially filled in.

A recent use of a ha-ha is at the Washington Monument to minimize the visual impact of security measures. After 9-11 and another unrelated terror threat at the monument, authorities had put up jersey barriers to restrict cars from approaching the monument. The new one-sided ha-ha, a low 0.76 m (30-inch) granite stone wall that doubles as a seating bench and also incorporates lighting, received the 2005 Park/Landscape Award of Merit.[6][7]

United Kingdom

Australia

In fiction

In the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel Men at Arms, a similar landscape boundary is used for a comedic twist: designed by ill-famed engineer Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, the ha-ha is accidentally specified to be 50 feet deep, is called a hoho, and is reported to have claimed the lives of three gardeners.[8] In Pratchett's book with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens during a gun battle at an old English country house a character in the book is said to be laying face down in the ha-ha, but not to be very amused by it.

Edward Gorey's The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, a satire on overcomplicated murder mysteries, ha-ha is one of the typical places where the body of a murder victim might be found.

Ice house connection

Ice houses are sometimes found built into ha-ha walls.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hunterston, Scotland: views of the Ha-Ha wall.
  2. ^ The first European attempt at a concerted account of Chinese gardening is Sir William Chambers, A dissertation on oriental gardening, London 1772.
  3. ^ Horace Walpole, Essay upon modern gardening, 1780
  4. ^ Hamlin, Ann (1987). Iona: a view from Ireland. Proc Soc Antiq Scot, ISSN 0081-1564, V. 117, P. 17.
  5. ^ Kew Lunatic Asylum - Historic Walk Australian Science Archives Project, [Kew Lunatic Asylum]
  6. ^ Washington Monument (from the Olin Partnership website)
  7. ^ Monumental Security (from the American Society of Landscape Architects website, April 10, 2006)
  8. ^ Annotations from Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms (from The Annotated Pratchett File v9.0
  9. ^ Walker, Bruce (1978). Keeping it cool. Scottish Vernacular buildings Working Group. Edinburgh & Dundee. Pages 564-565
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