Mr. Evelyn, thus become his own master, purposed a life of studious seclusion, and actually commenced making a kind of hermitage at Wotton, at that period the seat of his eldest brother. The park is watered by a winding stream, and is backed by a magnificent range of beech-woods: the goodly oaks were cut down by John Evelyn's grandfather, and birch has taken the place of beech in many cases; but we trace to this day Evelyn's hollies, "a _viretum_ all the year round;" and the noble planting of the author of _Sylva_, who describes the house as "large and ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with delicious streams and venerable woods. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance.... I should speak much of the gardens, fountains, and groves that adorne it, were they not generally known to be amongst the most natural (until this later and universal luxury of the whole nation, since abounding in such expenses), the most magnificent that England afforded, and which, indeed, gave one of the first examples of that elegancy since so much in vogue, and followed in the managing of their waters, and other ornaments of that nature." Evelyn, by whom, in his brother's lifetime, the chief improvements in these grounds were directed, thus speaks of their origin in his _Diary_, under the date 1643, after the disastrous contest had commenced between the King and the Parliament:--"Resolving to possess myself in some quiet, if it might be, in a time of so great jealousy, I built, by my brother's permission, a _study_, made a _fish-pond_, and an _island_, and some other solitudes and retirements at Wotton; which gave the first occasion to those water-works and gardens which afterwards succeeded them." Further alterations were made in 1652, and are thus described:--"I went with my brother Evelyn to Wotton to give him what directions I was able about his garden, which he was now desirous to put into some forme; but for which he was to remove a mountaine overgrowne with huge trees and thicket, with a moate within ten yards of the house. This my brother immediately attempted, and that without greate coste; for more than a hundred yards south, by digging down the mountaine, and flinging it into a rapid streame, it not only carried away the sand, &c., but filled up the moate, and levelled that noble area, where now the garden and fountaine is."