WILLIAM COBBETT 



229 



solid head of about ten feet high, while the bottom branches 

 come out on each side of the row about eight feet horizontally. 

 This hedge, or row, is a quarter of a mile long. There is a nice 

 hard sand-road under this species of umbrella ; and, summer and 

 winter, here is a most delightful walk ! Behind this row of yews, 

 there is a space, or garden (a quarter of a mile long you will 

 observe) about thirty or forty feet wide, as nearly as I can recollect. 

 At the back of this garden, and facing the yew tree row, is a 

 wall probably ten feet high, which forms the breastwork of a 

 terrace ; and it is this terrace which is the most beautiful thing 

 that I ever saw in the gardening way. It is a quarter of a mile 

 long, and, I believe, between thirty and forty feet wide ; of the 

 finest green sward, and as level as a die. 



We came hither by the way of Waverley Abbey and Moor(e) 

 Park. . . . We got leave to go and see the grounds at Waverley, 

 where all the old monks' garden walls are totally gone, and 

 where the spot is become a sort of lawn.^ I showed him the 

 spot where the strawberry garden was, and where I, when sent to 

 gather hautboys^ used to eat every remarkably fine one, instead of 

 letting it go to be eaten by Sir Robert Rich. . . . 



From Waverley we went to Moore Park once the seat of Sir 

 William Temple, and, when I was a very little boy, the seat of a 

 Lady, or a Mrs Temple. Here I showed Richard Mother Ludlam's 

 Hole ; but alas, it is not the enchanting place that I knew it, nor 

 that which Grose describes in his Antiquities ! . . . Near the 

 mansion, I showed Richard the hill, upon which Dean Swift tells 

 us, he used to run for exercise, while he was pursuing his studies 



1 Cobbett was born at Farnham, in a house still existing, and the ancient 

 kitchen garden of the Monks at Waverley Abbey was where he first worked. 

 ' It was the spot where I first began to learn to work, or rather where I first 

 began to eat fine fruit in a garden ; and though I have now seen and observed 

 upon as many fine gardens as any man in England, I have never seen a garden 

 equal to that of Waverley. ' — ( The English Gardener. ) 



The Abbey gave the title to the Waverley Novels, Scott having explored its 

 monastic chronicles in early life — the Annates Waverlienses of the Cistercian 

 Monks from 1066 to 1 291, were published by Gale in vol ii. of his Hist. 

 Anglican, Scriptores. 



