growth. There is some planting between the lower windows at 

 Brympton, but it is doubtful whether it would not have been better 

 omitted. It is a place more suitable (if on this front any gardening is 

 desirable) for the standing of Bays or some such trees, in tubs or boxes 

 on the terrace. 



There is sometimes a flower-border at the base of such a house ; 

 where this occurs it is a common thing to see it left bare in winter and 

 in the early year dotted with bulbous plants and spring flowers ; to be 

 followed in summer with bedding-plants. No such things look well 

 or at all in place directly against a building. The transition from the 

 permanent structure to the transient vegetation is too abrupt. At least 

 the planting should be of something more enduring and of a shrubby 

 character, and mostly evergreen. Such plants as Berberis Aquifolium, 

 Savin, Rosemary and Laurustinus would seem to be the most suitable, 

 with the large, persistent foliage of the Megaseas as undergrowth, 

 Pyrus japonica for early bloom, and perhaps some China Roses among 

 the Rosemary. 



But happily this house has been treated as to its environment with 

 the wisest restraint. No showy or pretentious gardening intrudes itselt 

 upon the great charm of the place, which is that of quiet seclusion in 

 a beautiful but little-known part of the county. The place lies among 

 fields — just the House, the Church and the Rectory. There is no 

 village or public road. The house is approached by a long green fore- 

 court inclosed by walls. Between this and the kitchen garden is the 

 quiet, low, stone-roofed church, in a churchyard that occupies such 

 another parallelogram as the forecourt. The pathway to the church passes 

 across the forecourt into the restful churchyard with its moss-grown tombs 

 and bushes of old-fashioned Roses, and the grassy mounds that mark 

 the last resting-place of generations of long-forgotten country folk. 



The church has a bell-cote built upon the gable of its western wall 

 of remarkable and very happy form, stone-roofed like the rest. Among 

 the graves stands the base — three circular steps and a square plinth — of 

 what was once an ancient stone cross. The church seems to lie within 

 the intimate protection of the house, adding by its presence to the 

 general impression of repose and peaceful dignity. 



37 



