38G 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



I May 11, 1874. 



vation as a dessert fruit, and though not large enough to rank 

 amongst the show kinds, is quite large enough for general 

 purposes. It belongs to the hairy-red section." — {Ibid., 109.) 



CHISWICK HOUSE. 



THE PROPERTI OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIKE. 



There was a house here built at the oommenoement of the 

 Beventeenth century by Sir Edward Wardour, which was pulled 

 down in 1688 ; on its site stands the present mansion, erected 

 in 1729 by the celebrated Earl of Burlington, and by marriage 

 it passed to WiUiam, fourth Duke of Devonshire. Kent, the 

 noted landscape gardener and architect, carried out tho work 

 under the Earl's supervision. 



Of that house we have a contemporary drawing, and it 

 justifies Lord Hervey for ridiculing it as being " too small to 

 inhabit, and too large to hang to one's watch." Two wings 

 were added to it in tlie present century, which render it more 

 commodious without injuring its beauty. 



We have no vocation or space for dwelling on the very con- 

 trasted celebrities who have resided here. Carr, infamous Earl 

 of Somerset, in the reign of Tames I. ; Lord Paulet, the royaUst, 

 yet protegee o t Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliamentary General ; 

 .Tames the rebel Duke of Monmouth. Charles Fox and George 

 Canning died here. From Lord Paulet it had passed to Lord 

 Crofts, who sold it to Lord Gerard, of Brandon, from whom it 

 was purchased by Viscount Ranelagh; from him by Edward 

 Seymour, Esq., of Newton Bradley, who sold it about 1C85 to 

 the Earl of Burlington. 



We have letters from some of those celebrities dated from 

 Chiswick, and from these we could glean many amusing notes. 

 The wall round the churchyard has a stone let in, which states 

 that this wall was erected by Earl EusseU to prevent the in- 

 cursions of swine, and an explanatory sentence in one of the 

 letters says, " Those on four legs were intended." The curfew 

 used to be rung every night till within the last few years. The 

 churchyard has been added to from time to time by gifts of 

 land from the Dukes of Devonshire, and the new portion is 

 neatly kept turfed, and the unoccupied parts cheered with 

 flowers. Slut's Hole between the churchyard and the river 

 was probably the original village, and is the head-quarters of 

 the fishermen. Despite its lying low, with the river on one 

 side and the churchyard on the other, there have been many 

 instances of extreme old age among its dwellers. In the 

 churchyard is Hogarth's tomb, Lord Macartney's, and PhiUp 

 James de Loutherbourg's the landscape painter. At one time 

 a cheese fair was held on The Mall, and it has been suggested 

 that this originated the name Cheese-wick, but this is not so. 

 It is pure Anglo-Saxon — Chis-wick, a residence on sand. Chis- 

 wick Hall, once Whittingham's printing office, is about to give 

 place to villas. 



Chiswick, without doubt, was originally mainly a fisher 

 village ; but in the days when roads were bad, or rather when 

 there were no roads at all, as people at the present time would 

 understand them, it had, from its position on a tidal river, an 

 easier and more speedy mode of communication with London 

 — namely, by water. Still, through its northern side passed 

 the great road to the west and south-west of England, and 

 along it travelled at a later date some 120 four-horse coaches 

 a-day. To the improvement of the roads, no doubt, was due 

 that close connection which has so long existed between Chis- 

 wick and gardening. Its soil is of a free loamy nature, 

 neither too stiff for vegetable crops nor too light for fruit trees, 

 of good depth, and underlying this is gravel and sand, render- 

 ing drainage, except for surface water, unnecessary. Market 

 gardens sprung up and flourished, farm culture gave way before 

 them ; and though now in turn giving place to buildings, still 

 they cover a great extent of ground, and those of Dancer, 

 Jessop, Mills, and Bagley for quantity and quality of produce, 

 and even for neatness of keeping, are not exceeded by the 

 best-kept private gardens in the country. The fruit planta- 

 tions of Mr. Dancer, when in blossom, form one of the grandest 

 of floral displays, but his Plums when ripening, in a good 

 year, are a sight that will be remembered, the branches sup- 

 ported by props — anything that can be had to prevent their 

 breaking down with the weight of the crop. 



While we have thus digressed upon the market gardens we 

 have not forgotten that these had in one instance to make 

 way for a garden of another description — that of the Horti- 

 cultural Society, which was established in 1823 on the property 

 of the late Duke of Devonshire, who as a lover of gardening and 

 the friend of Paxton will long be remembered after his name 



as a leader of fashion shall have been forgotten. It was there 

 that Paxton first met the Duke, and may be said to have com- 

 menced that career which led to fame and fortune. All this, 

 it may be said, has nothing to do with the grounds of Chiswick 

 House, but it is difficult to dissociate the Society's gardens 

 from those of Chiswick House, however different their work 

 and objects; the same broad shady avenue of Lime trees led 

 to both, both had the same head, and thousands of visitors on 

 many a July Show passed from the grounds of tho Society to 

 those of the Duke when it was but a few steps from the one to 

 the other. To these and many more the handsome wrought- 

 iron gates which form the principal entrance to the grounds 

 are familiar, as well as the leafy screen of Lime trees which 

 extends along each side of the drive. 



Reaching the west end of the villa we will now take a glance 

 at the grounds in which it is se.ated. Here the front of the 

 house is partially shut out from distant view by five noble 

 Cedars of Lebanon, which must be between 70 and 80 feet in 

 height, standing on the lawn. Formerly there were six, forming 

 a kind of avenue, but one of them died. To compensate for 

 the deficiency there is a Deodar planted by the Emperor 

 Nicholas of Russia on his visit in 1844, and now upwards of 

 40 feet high. The lawn terminates on the west side in a semi- 

 circle, with seats and figures dug out of the gardens of Ha- 

 drian's villa at Rome. A walk between two Yew hedges some 

 10 feet high, with antique busts let in at intervals, takes a 

 westward direction, and terminates about 200 yards off in an 

 alcove with a bust of Napoleon I. by the celebrated Danish 

 sculptor Thorwaldsen. This is known as Napoleon's Walk, and 

 is a favourite resort in summer. The next feature claiming 

 attention is a statue of Venus on a column, around the square 

 base of which the ground is carpeted with Ify, and the whole 

 is surrounded by a circle of vases. Two fine Portugal Laurels 

 are here noteworthy for their great size, but they are in fact 

 an assemblage of plants, the branches of the original ones 

 having layered themselves. Pursuing our way westward we 

 pass a number of younger Cedars than those previously re- 

 ferred to, and beautiful Evergreen Oaks, with masses of Rhodo- 

 dendrons. What is called the Bay Ground, from its containing 

 a number of Bays, is next reached, and this affords a beautiful 

 view across the ornamental water of an alcove copied from 

 the portico of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, with an obeUsk sur- 

 rounded by water. In the shrubberies here as well as else- 

 where Mr. Edmonds pointed out several cases of natural 

 grafting, especially in Hollies and Yews, arising from branches 

 crossing each other or being forced back on the trees from 

 which they sprung. Passing on by a shrubbery walk amidst 

 Box, Yews, and Rhododendrons, of which last one very large 

 plant is constantly increasing in size by layering itself, we 

 note a fine Wellingtonia 40 feet high, and near the handsome 

 Palladian bridge over the canal two noble specimens of the 

 Wych Elm. 



Crossing the bridge we pursue a walk skirting the park, and 

 by the side ef which are HoUies in great variety. Golden Y'ews, 

 Balearic Box, noticeable by its fine foliage, Magnolias, and a 

 handsome tree or two of the Deciduous Cypress. We have 

 aU heard of wonderful instances of grafting totally dissimilar 

 plants, but most of them have no more foundation in fact than 

 the apparent union of a May Duke Cherry tree and a Birch 

 which here occurs. Dr. Lindley accurately described it as 

 follows in his " Theory and Practice of Horticulture : " — " In 

 the park of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chiswick, there is a 

 very old Cherry tree, which has been decayed in the centre 

 for many years. Its hollow trunk has been occupied by a 

 common Birch tree, so that the same stem appears to support 

 a top composed of Birch and Cherry branches. The Cherry 

 trunk is 7:} feet in circumference, and feet in height to the 

 place where the branches diverge from it. To this height the 

 Cherry tree once completely enveloped the Birch ; but of late 

 years the diameter of the Birch has increased so much that it 

 has burst the decaying case of Cherry wood on the north-east 

 side, where it is partially exposed to within IS inches of the 

 ground. Below this the cyhnder of Cherry wood is still com- 

 plete. It is not surprising that the Birch should have burst 

 the Cherry on the north-east side, for that side has usually 

 the thinnest layers of wood, and would consequently give way 

 the soonest to'the expanding force of the Birch. The latter 

 is now above 50 feet high, and measures .5 feet 4 inches in 

 circumference at G feet from the ground, where it issues from 

 the hollow Cherry. The portion of Cherry tree still alive is 

 20 to 25 feet high." The Cherry tree is now dead, though a 

 portion of it survived till a few years ago and even bore fruit. 



