[July, 1861.] 193 



NOKTHUMBERLAND BOTANY. 

 Botany of Hulne Park. By W. R., Alnwick. 



Hulne Park, near Alnwick, in Northumberland, the magnificent 

 demesne attached as pleasure grounds to Alnwick Castle, the 

 princely seat of the Percies, Dukes of Northumberland, presents 

 a wide diversity of scenery, with striking inequalities of surface, 

 in one portion abounding in beautiful undulating meadows and 

 gentle slopes, in others with rugged and lofty hills rising 800 

 feet above the level of the sea. It embraces a rich variety of 

 objects of interest to the antiquarian, to the scientific naturalist, 

 to the botanical student, and to the lover of the picturesque and 

 beautiful. It is surrounded by a lofty park wall, and the contents 

 within its enclosure are estimated at between three and four thou- 

 sand acres, its circumference being upwards of twelve miles. The 

 river Aln, crossed by numerous bridges of elegant rural designs, 

 winds through the centre, forming a silvery thread, nearly divi- 

 ding the park into north and south, its banks shaded and overhung 

 with tastefully laid-out woodlands. Within the park may be 

 found almost every variety of sylvan scenery, of hill and dale, 

 from the rich perfection of modern cultivation to the romantic 

 grandeur of the primitive mountain. The river margin decorated 

 with a choice selection of evergreen and flowering shrubs ; the 

 lawns rejoicing in a luxuriant vegetation, and studded over with 

 healthy forest trees ; the higher sections covered with the dark 

 green pine, or waving with the purple blossom of the heath and the 

 golden glories of the gorse ; the rude and immemorial grey crag, 

 with weatherbeaten grandeur, in the loftier elevations, asserting 

 its supremacy, and adding wildness and sublimity to the whole. 



On the north bank of the river, embosomed in wood, stands 

 Hulne Abbey, of Early English architecture, founded for the 

 Order of Carmelite Friars about 1240, by the piety of William 

 de Vesey, the lord of Alnwick of those days, and Richard Grey, a 

 companion knight, two of the Crusaders whose chivalry had led 

 them to the Holy Land, and who, on their return, had discovered 

 in the chosen site for an abbey, a striking similitude to that of 

 Mount Carmel in Palestine. Its towers are still in tolerable pre- 

 servation, and form interesting objects of inspection to the re- 

 searches of the mediae v^alist. On a lofty eminence on the opposite 



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