204 



JOURNAL OP HOKTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 16, 1873. 



ously described, ■with the addition of naked rocks peeping out 

 in places, and now and then a stream of water rushing down a 

 lateral guUey to join the main river below. This carriage road 

 passes the front of the Castle, which is built on the top of a 

 steep grassy slope on the opposite side of the river, where the 

 roadway is carried over the river by a bridge, and by an easy 

 curve and gradient ascends the hill and reaches the front door. 



Where Lambton Castle is now, formerly stood Harraton 

 HaU, the seat of the noble family of D'Arcy. It is a modern 

 buUding, being erected, as was the bridge over the Wear, after 

 the designs of Bononi, early in the present century. The 

 Lambton, or, as it was originally spelt, the Lamtun family are 

 noticed in records contemporary with our first Norman longs, 

 and are the only family in the county of Durham except the 

 Lumleys that retain the residence from whence they derive 

 their name, which is Lambton House, still standing at a short 

 distance from the Castle. 



A little to the north-east of Lambton Castle and on the left 

 side of the river is an eminence called Worm's Hill, the reputed 

 scene of a legend well known, and some years ago believed in 

 by many people in the north. The ease was this : The young 

 heir of Lambton was one of a class not extinct yet, it is to be 



feared, that led a dissolute life, and was guilty of all manner 

 of wickedness short of murder ; and amongst other improper 

 acts he used to amuse himself in fishing on Sundays, and on 

 one of these occasions instead of a fish he caught a worm, 

 which was of such a singular and hideous description that he 

 had some difficulty in disengaging it from his line, and after so 

 doing threw it into a pit or pond, where it continued to grow 

 to such an extraordinary size, and its voracitj' for food was so 

 great, that it soon made the whole neighbourhood a wilderness, 

 and all attempts to kill it resulted in the discomfiture or 

 death of its assaOants. It is said that when at rest it coiled 

 itself several times round the sides of the hiU in question, 

 leaving on the bank its marks, which are still visible. Mean- 

 while the young man whose irreligion had been the cause of 

 this plague had betaken himself to other lands, and after a 

 variety of fortune returned home an altered man, and set about 

 destroying this monster by arraying himself in a complete suit 

 1 of armour, on the outside of which a great number of sharp 

 knife-blades were fixed, and enticing it to the river, took his 

 stand on a rock in the stream and awaited its attack, which 

 I was in the serpent fashion of coiling itself around his anta- 

 i gonist ; but in this instance the number of cutting blades out 



LAMliTON CASTLE, S.W. VIEW. 



it up into slices, which the current washed away. The ob- 

 noxious and all-dreaded worm disappeared. How far this 

 story may be tinctured with the religious feelings that pre- 

 dominated in the dark ages it is needless to enter into ; suffice 

 it to say the terrace-like marks remain on the hill, and the 

 legend has survived many generations. 



I could dwell upon otlier legends and upon the botany of 

 Lambton. Leaving this line fortress-like mansion to be de- 

 scribed hereafter, we retrace our steps, and taking advantage 

 of the ornamental iron bridge previously alluded to, we find 

 ourselves in a good position for taking in the whole at a glance, 

 and few gardens present a richer panorama. To be brief in 

 the description, I may say that both the Castle and the garden 

 occupy the left bank of the river Wear, which at this place 

 runs in a north-easterly direction, so that the garden in a 

 great measure faces the south-east ; and although the right 

 bank at this place rises somewhat suddenly, scai'cely giving 

 room for the carriage-road to be formed along the side of the 



river, the other side affords a level space of perhaps 200 yards 

 wide or more, which is the site of the kitchen garden. At 

 the northern extremity of this level tract the ground rises 

 abruptly, and on this the glass structures are erected in a 

 double tier, the lower one being also considerably above the 

 level of the kitchen garden ; a terrace wall with ample room 

 for Vine borders, &c. separating the two ; while in like manner 

 the second or upper tier of houses is faced with a steep sloping 

 bank of turf, on which flower-beds forming an agreeable pattern 

 as a whole are cut out, and at the time of my visit they were 

 well filled with the choicest bedding plants. I may also 

 observe that the original kitchen garden here was a square, 

 the lower tier of glass houses alluded to forming its northern 

 boundary, with walls at the east and west sides, and a hedge 

 at the south side nearest the river. This feature still exists, 

 but large additions in the way of kitchen-garden ground have 

 been made on the east side, while on the west side a still 

 larger space had been cleared of timber and was formed into a 



