Condover Hall near Shrewsbury is a stately house of important size and
aspect--one of the many great houses that were reared in the latter half
of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Its general character gives the
impression of severity rather than suavity, though the straight groups
of chimneys have handsome heads, and the severe character is mitigated
on the southern front by an arcade in the middle space of the ground
floor. The same stern treatment pervades the garden masonry. No
mouldings soften the edges of the terrace steps; parapets and retaining
walls, with the exception of the balustrade of the main terrace, are
without ornament of light and shade; plainly weathered copings being
their only finish. Only here and there, a pier that carries a large
Italian flower-pot has a little more ornament of rather massive bracket
form.
The garden spaces are large and largely treated, as befits the place and
its environment of park-land amply furnished with grand masses of
tree-growth. On the southern side of the house, where the ground falls
away, are two green flats and slopes, leading to a lower walk parallel
with their length and with the terrace above. The steps in the picture
are the top flight of a succession leading to these lower levels. The
lower and narrower grassy space has a row of clipped yews of a rounded
cone-shape. The upper level has a design of the same, but of different
patterns.
The balustrade in the picture is old, probably of the same date as the
house; much of the other stonework is modern. The circular seat on a
raised platform, with its stone-edged flower-beds, has a very happy
effect, and its yew-hedge backing joins well into the older yews that
[Illustration: CONDOVER: THE TERRACE STEPS