LEVENS 



There is perhaps no garden in England that has been so often 

 described or so much discussed as that at Levens in Westmorland, the 

 home of Captain Jocelyn Bagot. 



It was laid out near the beginning of the eighteenth century by a 

 French gardener named Beaumont. There is nothing about it of the 

 French manner, as we know it, for it is more in the Dutch style of the 

 time, and has become in appearance completely English ; according 

 perfectly with the beautiful old house, and growing with it into a com- 

 plete harmony of mellow age, whose sentiment is one of perfect unison 

 both within and without. 



Forward of the house-front, in a space divided by intersecting paths 

 into six main compartments, is the garden. Flower-borders, box-edged on 

 both sides, form bordering ornaments all round these divisions. The inner 

 spaces are of turf. At the angles and at equal points along the borders 

 are strange figures cut in yew and box. Some are like turned chessmen ; 

 some might be taken for adaptations of human figures, for one can trace 

 a hat-covered head — one of them wears a crown — shoulders and arms 

 and a spreading petticoat. Some of the yews, and these mostly in the 

 more open spaces of grass or walk, rise four-square as solid blocks, with 

 rounded roof and stemless mushroom finial. These have for the most 

 part arched recesses, forming arbours. One of the tallest, standing clear 

 on its little green, is differently shaped, being round in plan above and 

 the stems bared all round below, with an encircling seat. 



No doubt many of the yews have taken forms other than those that 

 were originally designed ; the variety of shape would be otherwise too 



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