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
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
MR. H. W. SEARCH]
Good hardy flowers are everywhere in abundance. Specially beautiful in
the later summer is a grand pink Hollyhock of strong free habit, with
the flowers of that best of all shapes--with wide, frilled outer petals
and centres not too tightly packed.
It would be interesting work for some one with a knowledge of the garden
design of the past three centuries in England to try to reconstruct the
original plan of some one time. Though on the ground the various
remaining portions of the older work cannot be pieced together, yet, if
these were put on paper to proper scale, it might be possible to come to
some general conclusions as to the way in which the garden was
originally, and again perhaps subsequently, laid out. Some of the
remaining portions of the older work of quite different dates may now
seem to be of the same age, but the expert would probably be able to
discriminate. The result of such a study would be worth having even if
actual reconstruction were not contemplated.
CLEEVE PRIOR
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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