DORSET 



account of its former owner. He, worthy of the 

 county that calls William Barnes its son, spent 

 all too short a portion of hisuseful life inthe old 

 garden where the dovecote stands; spent it a- 

 mong the birds that he loved second only to his 

 fellow-men. It is to Bingham's Melcombe, the 

 last homeof Reginald Bosworth Smith, that we 

 are now to turn. 



Pity that time and space will not allow de- 

 scription of this wonderful old Dorset manor- 

 house, of this enchanting garden where 'tis al- 

 ways afternoon. Much might be said about the 

 house itself, its architecture dating from the 

 reignof Stephen to the daysof Anne; about the 

 gate-house with its buttresses, its old walls nine 

 feet thick; about the hall, the Tudor oriel, with 

 the powdering-room and turret stairs. More 

 still about the garden, with its walls, here built 

 of small grey bricks, and there of ''cyclopean 

 stone"; itsgianthedgeofyew,fourcenturiesold; 

 itsbowling-greenofan^inviolateantiquity"; its 

 silver firs and sycamores and flowing stream. 

 But of all this it is far better notto speak. Some 

 one hasbeen beforehand with us; one whodwelt 

 for seven happy years amid this scene of placid 



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