See caption
Gardens and ha-ha at Berrington Hall in Herefordshire
National Trust

A ha-ha is a walled ditch, usually found separating the formal garden from the surrounding parkland of a country house. Its purpose is to allow a view over the landscape uninterrupted by walls, while still retaining any animals grazing in the parkland.[1]

The earliest known ha-ha in England, at Levens Hall in Cumbria, was in existence by 1695, when it was described in a letter as “the Ditch behind the Garden”.[2]

The term is of French origin, and first appears in print in Dezallier d’Argenville’s 1709 La Theorie et la Practique du Jardinage (The Theory and Practice of Gardening).[3]

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