FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MAJOR LONGFIELD]
LEVENS
There is perhaps no garden in England that has been so often described
or so much discussed as that at Levens in Westmorland, the home of
Captain Jocelyn Bagot.
It was laid out near the beginning of the eighteenth century by a French
gardener named Beaumont. There is nothing about it of the French manner,
as we know it, for it is more in the Dutch style of the time, and has
become in appearance completely English; according perfectly with the
beautiful old house, and growing with it into a complete harmony of
mellow age, whose sentiment is one of perfect unison both within and
without.
Forward of the house-front, in a space divided by intersecting paths
into six main compartments, is the garden. Flower-borders, box-edged on
both sides, form bordering ornaments all round these divisions. The
inner spaces are of turf. At the angles and at equal points along the
borders are strange figures cut in yew and box. Some are like turned
chessmen; some might be taken for adaptations of human figures, for one
can trace a hat-covered head--one of them wears a crown--shoulders and
arms and a spreading petticoat. Some of the yews, and these mostly in
the more open spaces of grass or walk, rise four-square as solid blocks,
with rounded roof and stemless mushroom finial. These have for the most
part arched recesses, forming arbours. One of the tallest, standing
clear on its little green, is differently shaped, being round in plan
above and the stems bared all round below, with an encircling seat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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