Besides the old clipped yews in the picture, others, apparently of the 

 same age, inclose an oval bowling-green. In form they are as if they 

 had been at first cut as a thick hedge with a roof-like sloping top. From 

 this, at fairly regular intervals, spring great rounded masses, that, with 

 the varying vigour of the individual trees and the continual clipping 

 without reference to a fixed design, have asserted themselves after their 

 own fashion. Though symmetry has been lost, the place has gained 

 in pictorial value. Four ways lead in ; the larger bosses guarding the 

 entrances. 



So it is throughout this charming but puzzling garden. Ever a 

 glimpse of some delightful old-world incident, and then the bafiled effort 

 to fit together the disjointed members of what must once have been a 

 definite design. 



The portion of the garden that is simplest and clearest is a broad walk 

 opposite the house, on the further side of the moat, and raised some ten 

 feet above it ; backed by an old yew hedge some twenty feet high, of 

 irregular outline. Just opposite the middle of the house the line of the 

 hedge is interrupted to give a view into the park, with a vista between 

 groups of fine elms ; but the hedge stretches away southward the whole 

 length of the long arm of the moat and the walled gardens. At regular 

 intervals along the old hedge are ranged, on column-shaped pedestals, 

 busts that came from an Italian villa. About half way along steps lead 

 down to the moat, where there is a ferry-punt propelled by an endless rope, 

 such as is commonly used in the fenlands. At the end of the long walk 

 is a curious seat with a high carved back, that looks as if it had once 

 formed part of an old ship or state barge, in the bygone days of two 

 hundred years ago, when a fine style of bold and free wood-carving was 

 lavishly used about their raised poops and stern-galleries. 



Towards the end of the second division of the walled garden is an old 

 orangery or large garden house, that probably was in connexion with the 

 scheme of the yew hedges. It has the usual piercing with large lights 

 but no top-light. The original purpose of these buildings was the housing 

 of orange and other tender trees in tubs, and the fact of its presence might 

 possibly throw some light on the mystery of the garden's former 

 planning. 



^3 



