HAM HOUSE 187 



been built at Woolaton in 1696. At the foot of 

 the stone steps of the gravel Terrace, at the west 

 side of the Garden the old Orangery at Ham is 

 found, placed at the end of a walled Garden, 

 chiefly grass, planted with Apple trees. Down the 

 middle is a wide grass path flanked on each side 

 by borders containing a gay selection of well- 

 grouped herbaceous plants. The Orangery faces 

 down the grass path (as shown in the water-colour 

 drawing), at the bottom of which runs a most 

 delightful Avenue of Ilex trees the most beautiful, 

 perhaps, of all the evergreens. 



In the midst of this Ilex Avenue is a statue of 

 Bacchus. Like the busts round the house (in 1679 

 there were thirty-eight of lead and six made of 

 marble), this little statue is made of lead the 

 favourite material for Garden Statuary, as it acquires 

 such a beautiful colour when unpainted which 

 these, alas! are not. 



Ham House stands low near the banks of the 

 Thames, opposite the village of Twickenham, so 

 loved by Pope, Gay, and Prior, also Horace Walpole. 

 Round it lie beautiful grassy meadows, which, 

 according to Walpole, always attracted showers of 

 rain when mown. " I remember," he writes, 

 " Lady Suffolk telling me, that Lord Dysart's 

 great meadows (at Ham) have never been mown 

 but once in forty years without rain. I said, ' All 

 that that proved was, that rain was good for hay,' 



