But the gardens here also engaged his attention. The park and grounds had been laid out by Mr. Lancelot Brown (well known in the last generation as a landscape gardener), but the garden near the house itself remained to be treated in Mr. Barry’s usual style. A grand terrace garden was formed on the south side, rising by a handsome flight of steps to the level of the house, adorned with sculptures and fountains, and laid out in parterre beds of architectural design. The gardens, kept up as they are with great care and skill, are among the chief sights of the neighbourhood. It need not be added that they thoroughly harmonize with the building and give it completeness and magnificence. SHRUBLAND PARK.--But of all parks of this kind probably the most successful was that carried out for Sir W. Middleton at Shrubland Park in the year 1848. Inferior in extent to the work at Trentham, it presented greater capabilities, and was more perfect in result. On the house itself he produced a striking alteration. The original building had little architectural character; but it had been considerably altered in 1830 from the design of Mr. Gandy Deering. On the house, as thus altered, Sir C. Barry had to work, and the effect produced will be seen by an inspection of the annexed woodcuts. He added a new entrance, with a sculpture gallery on each side. At the same time he raised a portion of the house, so as to form a beautiful specimen of his favourite Italian towers, and substituted balustrades for the large pediments surmounting the various fronts, which would have grouped ill with the tower, and, [Illustration: SHRUBLAND PARK, SUFFOLK. VIEW OF GARDEN FROM THE NEW TERRACES.] [Illustration: SHRUBLAND PARK, SUFFOLK. VIEW OF THE GARDEN FRONT AS ALTERED, AND OF THE NEW STEPS AND TERRACES TO GARDENS.] by distracting the eye, have interfered with unity of effect. A handsome lodge was added with a central tower, through which the main approach passed. But the glory of Shrubland lay in its gardens, and it is in them that the traces of his hand are most plainly seen. Beautiful in themselves, they seemed to agree too little with the house, which had now assumed some architectural pretensions. The upper garden near the house was therefore rearranged, and enclosed by balustrades. A handsome flight of steps led from the upper to the lower garden. At the foot of the steps an open loggia was placed, and the adjoining ground laid out with architecturally formed beds. The works show in a very marked manner the refined taste and exquisite finish which distinguished all his designs. The whole principle, indeed, of his arrangements was dictated by the desire of perfect finish and harmony, against which the original scheme, bringing an ordinary flower-garden up to the very walls of the house, appeared to him to militate. Few works produced so much effect, considering their scale, and certainly few were so entirely after his own heart, as those at Shrubland Park.