BROOK HILL 



OMPARED with Brook Hill house, the main 

 Brook Hill garden — "the Big Garden" as it is 

 called — is a very recent affair. Originally, the 

 vegetable garden lay just north of the house on a 

 large, level lawn. Within the last few years, the 

 pear trees that used to be in this garden were still 

 producing fruit, and the almost imperishable jonquil bulbs — in spite 

 of browsing cows and ruthless lawn mowers — fought their way 

 along for twenty-five years after the garden was moved. 



Before 1850 this garden was transferred to a location of extra- 

 ordinary beauty. It now lies on the crest of a sharply sloping hill 

 with a charming view across trees and meadows to the north. To 

 the south and east, at some small distance, lie "the woods," which 

 have never been slaughtered for fuel, and in whose keeping stand 

 beeches of immemorial age. 



The site of the garden, in truth, should have been the site of 

 the house itself. Yet so beautifully is it located that one is apt to 

 forget in its contemplation that this particular site could have been 

 used for any other purpose. Entering by a gateway cut through 

 an arching hedge, the grass-edged walk runs straight for a hundred 

 and fifty yards or more. On either side are deep beds of flowers, 

 so designed that each season, from the earliest 



"Daffodils 

 That come before the swallows dare and take 

 The winds of March with beauty," 



to the last Michaelmas daisy, has each its own peculiar gonfalon 

 of flowers. 



Perhaps the most gorgeous period is when the Harrisonii roses 

 are in bloom. Then it seems as if a field of the cloth-of-gold itself 

 were spread in waving welcome. 



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