THE ESrATE 267 



some of the audience sit, and enframed and backed by a series of hedges 

 or similar plantings which serve as a proscenium arch and as stage 

 scenery concealing the spaces on each side in which the players wait 

 for their cues, and having openings between them through which the 

 characters come upon the stage. The place for the audience may sim- 

 ply be an inclosed flat area on which chairs are set when the perform- 

 ance is given, or it may consist of one or more low terraces designed 

 either to be used as seats or in a similar way to receive temporary 

 seats when the theater is used. (See Tailpiece on p. 61.) 



Larger areas for sports and games are sometimes found on 

 country estates ; polo fields, racetracks, and so on ; but they have 

 no particular relation to the typical design of the estate, and are really 

 separate units in themselves. It is hardly desirable to discuss them 

 in detail here. 



As we said when we began the discussion of the private estate, one The Open 

 of the desires of the owner will almost certainly be for openness, for ex- 

 panse, for a sense of freedom. It is well in most designs, therefore, to 

 arrange to devote at least one large simple unit to this purpose. Some- 

 times this sense of expanse may be obtained by a view over several small 

 units, perhaps a view the beauty of which consists in a distant skyline, 

 or mountain, or river, not owned nor in any way controlled by the 

 owner of the estate. But where no such distant view is possible, it 

 will still be desirable to have some one open area as large as the cir- 

 cumstances allow; something to produce the effect of space. Usually 

 this area is simply treated ; its boundaries are trees and shrubs, its floor 

 is turf, and on smaller places it usually goes by the name of the "lawn." 

 Since the designer endeavors to make use of all the space at his com- 

 mand the lawn is often informal in order to throw into this one open 

 space all the possible accessible area. Since its fundamental purpose 

 is to suggest openness and freedom, a naturalistic treatment, at least 

 an informal treatment, is likely to be chosen, and this is particularly 

 the fact since in many cases the lawn is treated as an extension towards 

 the observer of a distant outside view * which in the nature of things 

 in the country is naturalistic. 



* Cf . Repton's "Appropriation," making the estate seem larger than it is 

 by merging its boundaries in those of the surrounding country and repeating within 



