SEPTEMEEK, 259 



LONGLEAT, WILTS, 

 THE EESIDENCE OF THE MARQUIS OF BATH. 

 This place has long been celebrated for its magnificent mansion of 

 palatial dimensions, which, as Loudon observes, is the proudest archi- 

 tectural monument in the west of England — and its noble park and 

 domain. The house occupies the site ot an old religious establishment, 

 and was built by John of Padua in the 16th century, in the transition 

 style of the day, placed in the bottom of a valley. The park stretches 

 away from it in every direction, diversified by hills richly clothed with 

 fine timber ; it contains within its boundary a delightful variety of 

 park-like and sylvan scenery. The view from the range of hills which 

 run across the park, on the Warminster side, has few equals in the 

 west. Immediately below the spectator lies the beautiful valley, 

 encircled with rising grounds, covered with wood, in which the house, 

 gardens, and lake are situate, looking over which the eye takes 

 in a wide expanse of rich landscape, terminating with the Somerset- 

 shire hills in the extreme distance. To the left the eye catches 

 " Alfred's Tower," a conspicuous object for miles around, rising from 

 the wooded range of Stourhead, the great feature of that part of Wilt- 

 shire and Somerset. At a distance of some twenty miles to the right 

 " Beckford's Tower," on Lansdowne, near Bath, is visible ; and much 

 nearer the spectator lies the picturesque market town of Frome, on the 

 skirts of the park, and apparently a part of the domain, which in a 

 great measure it is. 



The noble proprietors of Longleat for a long series of years have been 

 great promoters of planting and gardening. Switzer describes Longleat as 

 being, towards the end of the IJth century, laid out on a grand scale ; 

 and from a plan of the place we have seen of this period, it appears to 

 have been surrounded with gardens, in the regular Dutch style prevalent 

 at that time, with long avenues, vegetable sculptures, and embroidery 

 parterres, occupying a large extent of ground. The park likewise 

 appears to have been regularly laid out with avenues, &c., in a similar 

 formal manner. When these were replaced, by substituting the present 

 disposition of the grounds, and planting, we are not informed, but 

 suppose it to be the work of Brown, who, nearly a hundred years ago, 

 formed the lakes running through the park, and introduced a deal of 

 planting. That the lakes were formed by Brown there is no doubt ; in 

 fact, they are the worst feature in the park ; their tame outline and 

 bald shores assure us Brown was their designer, as well as of some of 

 the clumps of trees. Brown, though more extensively employed as a 

 landscape gardener than any person of the last century, had no genius 

 for his work, and were it not that many of the gardens he laid out have 

 been altered from his designs, the tame formal outlines of his water, 

 and ever-recurring clumps of trees, would have transformed the natural 

 features of many of the places he altered to a mere formalism, infinitely 

 less artistic than the Dutch or French style he was so anxious to 

 obliterate. 



Nearly the first Weymouth Pines introduced to England, and' called 

 after Lord Weymouth (afterwards Lord Bath) were planted here in 



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