MEMOIR. 



After supper he assembled his household to say even- 

 ing prayers with them. When all had gone to rest he 

 would settle himself in his little study and write, write, 

 write, until past midnight, sometimes past one, dash- 

 ing now and again at a book upon his shelves to verify 

 some one or other of those quaint and telling bits which 

 are so happily inwoven into his text. One fruit of these 

 labours is this book on Garden-craft. 



But I have detained the reader long enough. All is by 

 no means told, and many friends will miss, I doubt not, 

 with disappointment this or that feature which they knew 

 and loved in him. It cannot be helped. I have written 

 as I could, not as I would, within the narrow limits which 

 rightly bound a preface. 



How the end came, how within fourteen days the hand 

 of God took from our midst the much love, genius, beauty 

 which His hand had given us in the person of John and 

 Rose Sedding, a few words only must tell. 



On Easter Monday, March 3Oth, John Sedding spent 

 two hours in London, giving the last sitting for the 

 bust which was being modelled at the desire of the Art 

 Workers' Guild. The rest of the day he was busy in 

 his garden. Next morning he left early for Winsford, 

 in Somersetshire, to look after the restoration of this 

 and some other churches in the neighbourhood. Wins- 

 ford village is ten miles from the nearest railway station 

 Dulverton ; the road follows the beautiful valley of the 

 Exe, which rising in the moors, descends noisily and 

 rapidly southwards to the sea. The air is strangely chill 

 in the hollow of this woody valley. Further, it was March, 

 and March of this memorable year of 1891. Lines of 

 snow still lay in the ditches, and in white patches on the 

 northern side of hedgerows. Within a fortnight of this 

 time men and cattle had perished in the snow-drifts on 

 the higher ground. 



