soil is shown by the well-being of the White Lily and Phlox, Sweet
Williams and double Scarlet Potentilla. Carnations are largely grown in
the borders; the great Orange Lily (_L. croceum_) has just given place
to the White; Canterbury Bells are in grand masses, and the sturdier
plants are interspersed with graceful fragilities, such as the
long-spurred yellow Californian Columbine.
To the left of the alcove an archway cut in the yew hedge leads to the
bowling-green. This also is inclosed and sheltered by yew hedges. There
is a terrace all round, from which it is pleasant to watch the game.
Next to this, and following along the line of the yew hedge, is a square
inclosure of turf, with a few clipped yews. This is a kind of ante-room
to the rose-garden. High walls of yew are all around except to this
garden, where they are low and shaped. The middle space of the
rose-garden has beds concentrically arranged, leaving spandrils of beds
of other shape. At the end is a garden-house, and a wide way out to lawn
spaces with fine trees and flowering shrubs. A broad gravel walk at the
boundary of the lawn, with a wide grass outer verge and the knee-high
top of the wall of a sunk fence, that separates it from the park, leads
leftwards to the house. From this walk there is a very beautiful view
across the steeply-falling gradient of the park to the lake. The park
has grand old oak trees that fall into picturesque groups. Beyond the
lake again are fine masses of timber. The lake is a sheet of water that
takes a winding course and disappears among the trees.
The kitchen-garden walls are interesting survivals of an old way of
treating fruit-trees. They are three feet thick and honeycombed with
flues for heating. It was a clumsy and unmanageable expedient practised
in the days before the circulation of water in pipes heated from one
boiler was understood. The modern orchard-house is much more convenient
and its working absolutely under control.
The kitchen garden lies between the house and the newer gardens that
have been described. The maze should not be forgotten. It is at the back
of the alcove and the bowling-green. These old garden toys are very
seldom planted now. Perhaps people have not time for them. Also they are
costly of labour; the area of green wall of a maze of even moderate
size, that has to be clipped yearly, if computed would amount to an
astonishing figure. Now that the possibilities of other forms of garden
delight are so much widened, it is small wonder that the maze should
have fallen into disuse. It must have been amusing in the older days
when people’s lives were simpler and more leisured; but there are
puzzles and difficulties enough in our more complicated days, and the
influences that we now want in a garden are soothing tranquillities
rather than bewildering perplexities. Near the maze and alcove is a
group of three great Lombardy Poplars that tells with extremely fine
effect from many parts of the garden.
On one side of the house is an old parterre of the kind now but seldom
seen out of Italy; with elaborate scrolls and arabesques of clipped box;
the more characteristically Italian form of the “knotted” gardens of our
Tudor ancestors. The English patterns were much nearer akin to those
used so lavishly on gala clothing in the form of needlework of cording
and braiding, and the strap-work of wood-carving, while the Italian
parterre designs were drawn more freely in flowing lines and less rigid
forms.
Opposite the porch is a sundial, supported by a kneeling figure of a
black slave, of the same design as the one in the gardens of the Inner
Temple, that was formerly at Clement’s Inn, and is known as the
“Blackamoor.” Like this one the figure is of lead.
[Illustration: LADY COVENTRY’S NEEDLEWORK
from the picture in the possession of