In Eastern Suffolk, within a few miles of the sea, is this, the country
home of the Hon. William Lowther.
The house, replacing an older one that occupied the same site, is of
brick and stone, built in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. A
moat, inclosing an unusually large area, and formerly entirely
encompassing the house and garden, is now partly filled up; but one long
arm remains, running the greater part of the length of the house and
garden; a shorter length bounding the inclosed garden on the opposite
side. The longer length of moat approaches the house closely on its
eastern face, and then forms the boundary of a large and
beautifully-kept square lawn, with fine old cedars and other trees.
Following this southward is a double walled garden, with the main paths,
especially those of the nearer division, bordered with flowers. Beyond
these again is the portion of the garden that forms the subject of the
picture--a small parterre of box-edged beds with a row of old clipped
yews beyond. This leads westward to a grove of trees, with a statue also
girt with trees standing in an oval in the midmost space.
The garden has beautiful incidents in abundance, but is somewhat
bewildering. Traces of the older gardening constantly appear; but their
original cohesion has been lost. The moat, always an important feature,
ends suddenly at four points. Garden-houses and gazebos, that usually
come at salient points with determinate effect, seem to have strayed
into their places. Sections of the park seem to have broken loose and
lost themselves in the garden. The garden is not the less charming in
detail, but is impossible to gather together or hold in a clear mental
grasp, from the absence of general plan.
Besides the old clipped yews in the picture, others, apparently of the
same age, inclose an oval bowling-green. In form they are as if they had
been at first cut as a thick hedge with a roof-like sloping top. From
this, at fairly regular intervals, spring great rounded masses, that,
with the varying vigour of the individual trees and the continual
clipping without reference to a fixed design, have asserted themselves
after their own fashion. Though symmetry has been lost, the place has
gained in pictorial value. Four ways lead in; the larger bosses guarding
the entrances.
So it is throughout this charming but puzzling garden. Ever a glimpse of
some delightful old-world incident, and then the baffled effort to fit
together the disjointed members of what must once have been a definite
design.
The portion of the garden that is simplest and clearest is a broad walk
opposite the house, on the further side of the moat, and raised some ten
feet above it; backed by an old yew hedge some twenty feet high, of
irregular outline. Just opposite the middle of the house the line of the
hedge is interrupted to give a view into the park, with a vista between
groups of fine elms; but the hedge stretches away southward the whole
length of the long arm of the moat and the walled gardens. At regular
intervals along the old hedge are ranged, on column-shaped pedestals,
busts that came from an Italian villa. About half way along steps lead
down to the moat, where there is a ferry-punt propelled by an endless
rope, such as is commonly used in the fenlands. At the end of the long
walk is a curious seat with a high carved back, that looks as if it had
once formed part of an old ship or state barge, in the bygone days of
two hundred years ago, when a fine style of bold and free wood-carving
was lavishly used about their raised poops and stern-galleries.
Towards the end of the second division of the walled garden is an old
orangery or large garden house, that probably was in connexion with the
scheme of the yew hedges. It has the usual piercing with large lights
but no top-light. The original purpose of these buildings was the
housing of orange and other tender trees in tubs, and the fact of its
presence might possibly throw some light on the mystery of the garden’s
former planning.
[Illustration: THE YEW HEDGE, CAMPSEY ASHE