What is a haw haw wall? A ha-ha (or ha-ha wall) (also haw-haw) is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier while preserving views. The design includes a turfed incline which slopes downward to a sharply vertical face, typically a masonry retaining wall.
Why are walls called ha-ha?
A French surprise According to d'Argenville - and his first English translator, John James - the ha-ha derived its name from the success of the optical illusion it created from a distance on viewers of the garden: the hitherto concealed ditch and wall would 'surprise the eye coming near it, and make one cry, “Ah! Ah!”'
What is a HAHA in landscape?
A ha-ha, also known as a sunk fence, blind fence, ditch and fence, deer wall, or foss, was formed by a ditch (sometimes with a fence at its lowest point), a steep bank, or a wall built into the side of a hill.
What is a sunken fence?
Definition of sunk fence : a ditch with a retaining wall used to divide lands without defacing a landscape. — called also ha-ha.
What is a haha architecture?
A ha-ha (French: hâ-hâ or saut de loup), also known as a sunk fence, blind fence, ditch and fence, deer wall, or foss, is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier (particularly on one side) while preserving an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond from the other side.
How do you make a haha?
A traditional haha may have been built as a dry stone wall for example if the conditions are right. A cost effective way of building a new haha is to use reinforced masonry construction such as hollow concrete blocks with concrete infill and reinforcing bars down the centre.
What is Miss Crawford's remark on ha-has?
By 1814, readers of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park would have had little problem understanding Miss Crawford’s remark on ha-has, which touches on their efficacy in preserving the appearance of uninterrupted verdure: ‘I have looked across the ha–ha till I am weary.
What is a ha-ha fence?
A ha-ha is a type of sunken fence that was commonly used in landscaped gardens and parks in the eighteenth century . It involved digging a deep, dry ditch, the inner side of which would be built up to the level of the surrounding turf with either a dry-stone or brick wall. Meanwhile, the outer side was designed to slope steeply upwards, before leveling out again into turf. The point of the ha-ha was to give the viewer of the garden the illusion of an unbroken, continuous rolling lawn, whilst providing boundaries for grazing livestock.
Where is Kingston Lacy?
Kingston Lacy. A brick ha-ha separates the formal gardens from parkland at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, the lavish home of the Bankes family since the 17th century. Visit Kingston Lacy. Misty morning in the garden at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. National Trust / Danielle Westerhof.
Where were the first ha-has found?
Stowe is home to among the very first ha-has in England, which gained widespread public notice and admiration in the 1720s and 30s, and were to prove the models for many of the ha-has still in existence across the British Isles today.
Who designed the Kedleston Hall?
Kedleston Hall. The gardens at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire were designed in the mid 18th century by the celebrated architect, Robert Adam, and include a number of ha-has. Visit Kedleston Hall. The Ha-Ha can be reinstated. National Trust Images - John Millar.
Who offered advice to Richard Boyle?
Thus, poet Alexander Pope offered his friend, Richard Boyle, the practical advice to ‘surprise, vary and conceal the bounds,’ of his garden in order to create the desired effect.
What is the meaning of the ha-ha in Barchester Towers?
In Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers, a ha-ha marks the social divisions in Miss Thorne's fête champêtre: "Two marquees had been erected for these two banquets: that for the quality on the esoteric or garden side of a certain deep ha-ha; and that for the non-quality on the exoteric or paddock side of the same. ".
What is a Ha-has?
Ha-has are used in landscape design to prevent access to a garden by, for example, grazing livestock, without obstructing views. In security design, the element is used to deter vehicular access to a site while minimizing visual obstruction.
What is the ha-ha in Arcadia?
In Tom Stoppard 's 1993 play Arcadia, the ha-ha is discussed in relation to a Capability Brown garden, and is used as one of the links between the nineteenth and twentieth century characters.
Why do people put up jersey barriers at the Washington Monument?
A 21st-century 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 prevent large motor vehicles from approaching the monument.
Why is it called "ha ha"?
The name "ha-ha" is thought to have stemmed from the exclamations of surprise by those coming across them, as the walls were intentionally designed so as not to be visible on the plane of the landscape. Alternatively, it may have been referred to as "ha-hah" as an abbreviation of "half and half" with half a wall and half a ditch. In a letter to Daniel Dering in 1724, John Perceval, 1st Earl of Egmont (father to the prime minister Spencer Perceval ), observed of Stowe: "What adds to the beauty of this garden is, that it is not bounded by walls, but by a ha-hah, which leaves you the sight of the beautiful woody country, and makes you ignorant how far the high planted walks extend."
What was the purpose of the park without the sunk fence?
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.
