The other, and usual, lodge, is close by the Alton Station on the Churnet Valley (North Staffordshire) Railway. This lodge, designed by Pugin, and decorated with the sculptured arms of the family, is about a mile from the house, and the carriage-drive up the wood is on the ascent all the way. A path, called “the steps,” for foot passengers, turns off from the lodge, and winds and “zig-zags” its way up, arriving at the house opposite to the Clock Tower, and passing on its way some charming bits of rocky and wooded scenery. [Illustration: _The Choragic Temple._] The gardens are entered from the park by a pair of gates (on either side of which is a superb cedar) in an archway, under the “Earl’s Drive” Bridge. Near this spot is the CHORAGIC TEMPLE, designed from the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, at Athens; it contains a bust of Earl Charles, the founder of the gardens, with the appropriate inscription—“He made the desert smile.” From here the visitor then proceeds along a winding path with an arcaded wall on one side, and the valley, from which come up the music of the stream and the bubbling of the miniature fountains, on the other. This passes between myriads of standard roses on either side, and long continuous beds of “ribbon gardening,” or what, from its splendid array of continuous lines of colours, may very appropriately be termed “rainbow gardening,” and pathways winding about in every direction, among roses, hollyhocks, and shrubs and flowers of divers kinds, to a pleasant spot to the left, where is a terrace garden approached by steps with pedestals bearing choice sculptures. In the centre is a sundial; behind this, a fine group of sculpture, and behind this again a fountain, surmounted by a lion. The wall is covered with luxuriant ivy, and headed by innumerable vases of gay-coloured flowers, above which, a little to the back, rises one of the many conservatories that are scattered over this portion of the grounds.