The gardens of Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire, the property of Earl
Cowper, but occupied for the last five-and-twenty years by Mr. W. D.
Fane, though perhaps less well preserved than those of Bramham, still
show the design of Henry Wise in the early years of the eighteenth
century. There had formerly been an older garden. Wise’s plan shows how
completely the French ideas had been adopted in England, for here again
are the handsome pools and fountains, the garden thick-hedged with yew,
and the _bosquet_ with its straight paths, green-walled, leading to a
large fountain-centred circle in the thickest of the grove.
The whole space occupied by the house and grounds is not of great
extent; it is irregular and even awkward in shape, and has roads on two
sides.
The treatment is extremely ingenious; indeed, it is doubtful whether any
other plan that could have been devised would have made so much of the
space or could have so cleverly concealed the limits.
The garden lies out forward of the house in a long parallelogram. Next
to the house-front is the usual wide gravel terrace, from which paths,
inclosing spaces of lawn, lead down to a lower level. The whole lawn,
with its accompanying paths, slopes downward; where a steeper slope
occurs above and below, the path becomes a flight of steps.
The lower level is intersected by paths. As they converge, they swing
round the pedestal of the Flying Mercury that stands upon a circular
grass-plot. The main path soon reaches the edge of the handsome pool
known as the Great Water. It is four-sided, with a
[Illustration: MELBOURNE