BECKETT 121 



can be taken leading to the lower room of the 

 Garden House, which is on the level of the water. 

 Built of a beautiful yellow-coloured stone, the 

 house is constructed with four high doors and 

 eight large windows. Round three sides runs a 

 wide balcony, the Terrace Walk approaching it on 

 the fourth side. 



The most marked feature of the whole structure 

 is the heavy pointed roof of green slate (with a white 

 pinnacle in the centre), built with tremendously 

 overhanging eaves, quite seven feet wide. It is 

 this roof with its projecting eaves which gives the 

 decidedly Chinese appearance to the Garden 

 House, sometimes called in consequence " the 

 China House." 



This little building of yellow stone and green 

 slates, and the bright flowers surrounding it, all 

 harmonise perfectly with the beautiful white and 

 yellow Water Lilies floating on the water under the 

 little white cradle bridge which is thrown across the 

 lake, the whole effect giving to this part of the 

 Garden a feeling of being for ever enfte, so unlike 

 the character of the Garden elsewhere, with its sombre 

 green walks and high Yew hedges. Many a gossip 

 over a dainty tea-table when first that woman's 

 luxury came into fashion in Queen Anne's day 

 must have taken place here ; and if the walls of the 

 beautifully proportioned little building could speak, 

 they would be to tell of old-world tea parties, and 



