256 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



Happily, however, this is now a thing of 

 the past. For with infinite care and labour, 

 it has been gradually restored by kind hands 

 to something of its first state of order and 

 beauty ; though the long years of neglect have 

 inevitably left their mark, and destroyed much 

 that one fain would still find there. 



When my father settled at Eversley Rectory 

 in 1844, most of the garden consisted in a 

 line of fish ponds, running from those in the 

 glebe field, past the house, and joining the 

 large pond belonging to the Church Farm, 

 behind the church. He at once became his 

 own engineer and gardener. The ponds, 

 except three in the glebe field which in 

 course of time were stocked with trout, 

 were drained. What had been a wretched 

 chicken-yard outside the brick-floored room 

 which my father took for his study, was 

 laid down in turf, with a wide border on 

 each side ; and the wall between the house 

 and stables on the western side, was soon 

 a mass of creeping Roses, scarlet Honey- 

 suckle, and Virginia Creeper. This became 



